Lack of sunshine – Vitamin D deficiency
Many say, "not laughter, but sunshine is the best medicine."
Lack of sunshine, therefore, can lead to several problems in your day-to-day life. For starters, you're likely to experience a drop in serotonin levels (a neurotransmitter, responsible for stabilizing your mood), which can lead to depression.
What’s more, a lack of sunshine automatically translates to lower vitamin D levels, which often leads to chronic aches and pains. More than 40% of American adults already suffer from a vitamin D deficiency.
Protect yourself from this by learning about the various symptoms, causes, and remedies that form a vitamin D deficiency.
Lack of Vitamin D - Symptoms
If your body is reeling with lack of sunshine or a vitamin D deficiency,, it will present you with these three most common symptoms:
1. Mental fatigue and Depression
As mentioned earlier, low levels of Vitamin D can cause a severe ‘serotonin’ deficiency, which leads to irritability, mood swings, and diseases that fall within the gamut of depression like the Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). A serotonin deficiency can further lead to mental lethargy and other illnesses like social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
2. Degrading bone health
Low levels of vitamin D deteriorate your bone health. How? A lack of this vitamin hampers your body’s capability to absorb calcium, which is instrumental in awarding strength to your bones. A weak bone structure can lead to chronic aches and pains that can further develop into ailments like Osteoporosis and Osteopenia. Besides, poor bone health is one of the fundamental reasons behind fractures.
3. Weight gain
You wouldn’t obviously link a vitamin D deficiency with weight gain. However, a study conducted with both women and men revealed a link between increased weight, especially in the abdominal area, resulting from low levels of vitamin D in the bloodstream.
Fortunately, you can bring down your weight with regular exercise, a well-balanced diet, and natural weight management supplements like Calocurb. More ever, you would also need to expose yourself to an adequate amount of sunlight every day.
Lack of Vitamin D – Causes
One of the most well-known causes of lack of vitamin D is underexposure to the sun. Therefore, experts recommend that people with light complexion must expose themselves to sunlight for anywhere between 10 to 30 minutes without sunscreen at least 3 to 4 times every week. People with darker skin can expose themselves to the sun for 30 to 40 minutes 3 to 4 times a week.
While proper sun exposure is critical to overcoming your vitamin D shortage, you’d be surprised to know that this is not it! Here are a few more reasons that can make you deficient in vitamin D:
- Increasing age
- Being overweight
- Eating a diet that lacks fish and dairy items
- Living in cold countries, where nature rations sunlight
- Consuming medicines like steroids and statins that hinder vitamin D absorption
- Mostly staying indoors
- Having conditions like Hyperthyroidism, kidney or liver disease
- Suffering from Crohn’s Disease, which does not let your digestive tract absorb enough vitamin D.
Vitamin D Deficiency – Treatment
As you can see, underexposure to the sun is not the only reason behind this deficiency, which is why you must add oral supplements and specific foods to boost vitamin D levels in your bloodstream.
Here are the three foolproof ways to combat this deficiency:
- Get more Sun time
The obvious and irrefutable answer is that you proactively increase your sun exposure. However, this will prove to be inadequate if your deficiency is grave. Therefore, it's generally standard practice to supplement sun time with the other options provided below.
- Consume Supplements
Consume vitamin D supplements. They are readily available over the counter, which means you don't require any prescription. However, before taking them, consult your physician for a customized dosage.
- Try Specific Foods
There are certain foods you can add to your diet that help level up vitamin D in your bloodstream. These include – egg yolks, cow’s milk, soy milk, mushrooms. You can also try certain fish and seafood like tuna, mackerel, oysters and shrimp to boost your vitamin D levels.
Keep in mind that only a few foods contain vitamin D, which you'll need to consume in substantial quantities daily to rebuild your vitamin levels.
Therefore, we recommend you try all three solutions simultaneously, that is:
- Expose yourself to the sun, more
- Take supplements as they contain a very high quantity of vitamin D
- Eat the foods listed above
Once you adopt these three practices, you'll see a change in your vitamin D levels within a couple of days.