Vitamin D: The Real Reason Your Vitamin D Is Low
Vitamin D Deficiency: The Missing Piece in Your Perimenopause Symptoms
Vitamin D is more of a hormone than a vitamin. The best source is from sunlight where our body converts it and supplies to every organ in our body to maintain a healthy immune system, cardiovascular health, and metabolic health. Deficiency is common especially among women. Today we are going to talk about this from a functional medicine perspective, why deficiencies are common, cholesterol myths, sun exposure, and how to naturally increase.
Why Am I So Tired if my Vitamin D is “Normal”?
If you are dealing with fatigue even though your levels are normal, the vitamin is not the cause. There are multiple factors that cause fatigue, such as thyroid dysfunction, perimenopause, chronic illness, low ferritin or iron, and sleep apnea or disturbances.
Signs of Vitamin D Deficiency Women Over 40 Often Miss
Low Vitamin D can mimic perimenopause or normal aging, which is why this often goes undiagnosed. Your doctor may be looking at the wrong labs. Here are the most common symptoms:
- Fatigue
- Muscle aches or weakness, or joint pain
- Frequent colds
- Thinning hair
- Slow workout recovery
- Low mood, irritability, or mild depression
- Brain fog
- Irregular periods
- PMS or PMDD symptoms
- Increase in severity of perimenopause symptoms
The Vitamin D-Perimenopause Connection
There is a connection between low Vitamin D levels and perimenopause and menopause. Some studies show that low levels have been linked to earlier onset of menopause. Symptoms of perimenopause tend to increase in severity. Cardiovascular and metabolic risks tend to be higher in women with low levels. PubMed says, “Vitamin D plays a key role in immune regulation, helping to counteract menopause-related inflammation and immune decline, which are worsened by reduced estrogen levels. Maintaining sufficient Vitamin D supports immune balance and lowers inflammation.”
Why Your Body Needs Cholesterol to Make Vitamin D
When we lower our cholesterol with fat-free diets or statins, we deplete this fat-soluble hormone. We have been led to believe that cholesterol is the basis of heart disease. From a functional medicine standpoint, cholesterol isn’t the enemy, it’s essential to hormone production. Women need to focus on consuming more healthy fats to increase levels. It starts with sunlight; when we are exposed to UVB rays, our body converts UVB rays into D3 and the body uses it in the bloodstream and cardiovascular system to transfer to all cells and tissues in the body. PubMed says, “Vitamin D metabolism and cholesterol metabolism have a complex bidirectional relationship. Certain behaviours of the two metabolisms are consistent with our understanding of the pathways and their regulation.”
Do Statins Cause Vitamin D Deficiency?
In functional medicine, we look beyond lowering cholesterol alone and ask why your body needs cholesterol, including Vitamin D production. Statins are believed to impact levels because they work by lowering cholesterol. Yet taking a statin and Vitamin D supplements together, increase the effectiveness of stains and lower side effects. Correcting deficiency may improve statin tolerability and effectiveness, however, researchers are still working to understand this. PubMed says, “Based on this biochemical intersection, early theoretical concerns arose that statin therapy could inadvertently reduce the availability of 7-DHC for vitamin D synthesis, thereby impairing cutaneous production of vitamin D3.” When it comes to cardiovascular disease, cholesterol alone is not the root cause and statins should not be the go-to in every instance.
Is High Cholesterol Really the Heart Disease Villain?
High cholesterol can impact heart disease, but it is not the root cause. The real factor in heart disease is metabolic health, specifically insulin resistance and diabetes. Increased levels of insulin damage blood vessel walls. Cholesterol is the firefighter that repairs that damage, thus why it’s present in plaque. Plaque is made up of more than cholesterol: sugar, calcium, white blood cells, and cellular waste. Cholesterol just became the enemy instead of the hero it really is.
Does Sunscreen Block Vitamin D Production?
Yes, our skin uses the UVB rays to create Vitamin D production in the body. If we are constantly wearing sunscreen, we are preventing our body from absorbing the sun’s rays to make this crucial nutrient. Deficiency is common in the winter months when many of us get very little sun exposure, but is becoming more common year-round, due to the increased use of sunscreens and sunblocks. PubMed explains, “This process of absorbing UVB takes place in the cellular membrane, and the resulting vitamin D is expelled in the extracellular space, binding to a carrier protein named vitamin D-binding protein. Sunlight also acts as a regulator of vitamin D production in that increased sunlight exposure is captured by pre-vitamin D and vitamin D and transforms these molecules into photoisomers, which do not have any biological activities.”
How Much Sun Exposure Do You Need For Vitamin D?
10-15 minutes a day of sun exposure without sunscreen helps your body make this vitamin naturally. Just remember, there is a difference between sun exposure and sunburns. Sunburns are bad and will cause damage, however, our bodies do need some sun exposure without sunscreen not only to make vitamin D but to reset our circadian rhythm, which will improve perimenopause symptoms as well. PubMed says, “1000 IU vitamin D doses are synthesized in 10-15 min of sun exposure for adults.”
Vitamin D and Autoimmune Disease, What’s the Link?
Autoimmune disease happens when there’s a dysfunction of immunity. In autoimmune disease, your healthy cells attack themselves, causing an autoimmune condition. Vitamin D has anti-inflammatory effects on the body and if deficiency is present, inflammation increases. PubMed says, “Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with several autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), type 1 diabetes mellitus, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), mixed connective tissue disease, autoimmune thyroid disease, scleroderma and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).”
D3-K2, and Dosage: What Supplements Work?
Supplementation is not as effective as getting sun exposure. However, in many areas where winters are cold and gray, getting sun exposure isn’t an option. For these cases, supplementation is beneficial. Taking a D3-K2 supplement is optimal because these two nutrients combined offer increased calcium absorption, improves bone health, immune system, and energy production of the mitochondria. Because it is a fat-soluble vitamin, taking with a meal that includes good, healthy fats helps your body absorb D3-K2 better. Breakfast or lunch is the best time to take Vitamin D as it can affect sleep if taken too late in the day. We have a great D3-K2 supplement we highly recommend, you can click here to order.
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If you’re ready to take control of your health with a functional medicine approach, we’d love the opportunity to work with you. Please visit our website to get started today. And if you want to shop for Vitamin D supplements, please click here to shop.
