Vitamin D is essential for your bone health, as helping to protect against colds, fight depression and guard your wellbeing against breast cancer and cardiac death, but what about weight loss? Can vitamin D give your diet a kick in the right direction?
Low levels of vitamin D are often observed in people who are overweight and wellness experts believe that the hypothalamus in your brain (which, among other things, regulates hormonal functions) senses low vitamin D levels in your body and responds by increasing your body weight set point and releasing more hunger-stimulating hormones. Vitamin D also may prevent the growth and maturation of your fat cells.
Published in Nutrition Journal, a 12-week weight-loss study published found that increasing vitamin D levels resulted in decreases in fat mass, while a 2012 study found that supplementing with both calcium and vitamin D led to an increase in abdominal fat loss, albeit without increasing total weight loss. In 2010, it was reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that supplementing with vitamin D did not enhance weight loss, but it did improve other markers of health such as decreased triglyceride levels (a risk factor for heart disease) and TNF-alpha, a cellular marker of inflammation.
From this you can see that keeping your vitamin D levels in the optimum range can have great health benefits, but it isn’t the be-all and end-all of weight loss. Still, what can you do to increase your intake of this vital vitamin? From a dietary perspective, fatty fish are the major source, and fortified juices, milk, and cereals can also contribute to your daily intake. Going outside and getting some sun on your skin can help, as your body synthesises vitamin D from UVB rays.
However, your geographic location plays a major role in the UVB rays that you have access to, and even if you do live in the right place, other factors such as pollution and cloud cover can also impact how much vitamin D you will get while out in the sun. This is why vitamin D deficiency is so common in this country, and so you may need to supplement with 1,000 to 2,000 IU of vitamin D a day.
