Vitamin D deficiency is something we see consistently in clinic.
If you are supplementing with Vitamin D, it might be a good idea to read on…
Before supplementing with Vitamin D, we need to get to the root cause of this issue. Unfortunately it not a case of supplementing to fix the issue. It may even make matters worse.
What affects your Vitamin D status?
- Where you live and how much sun exposure you have?
- The colour of your skin (those with darker skin, need more sun exposure)
- The use of sunscreen used to block UV light
- Whether you have a magnesium deficiency (can be checked using a HTMA test)
- How much fat tissue you have
- Gut health and how well you digest and absorb foods high in Vitamin D eg egg yolk, cod liver oil
- Stress levels as these can affect your magnesium levels and therefore your absorption of Vitamin D.
In regards to Magnesium, all of the enzymes needed to metabolise Vitamin D, require magnesium.
A lot of forms of magnesium do not absorb well – another reason to do a HTMA test!
So if you want to address your low Vitamin D levels, before supplementing, it might be a good idea to test.
Test, don’t Guess!