I was just reading my nutrition journal and I found something just by lucky accident that is very important this time of year.
In a new study just published this past Friday in The Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, they took men with low vitamin D and gave them a daily supplement. Only 1,000 IU a day was enough extra vitamin D for the men to have consistent, significant improvements in muscle strength.1
Vitamin D benefits your muscles because it regulates muscle calcium, muscle cell growth, and muscle fiber size. It also prevents degeneration and protects against insulin resistance so you can have more energy in your muscles.2
The reason I say it’s important this time of year is because we just pushed the clock back an hour and that has a drawback. Less time to get enough vitamin D – the “sunshine vitamin.”
In the winter, not only is the sun farther away, but you don’t get as much exposure to it. If you work during the day, you wouldn’t have any sun exposure until after work. The problem is, now you’re getting off work an hour later as far as daylight goes, and it’s dark.
You don’t get the benefit of it being light early in the morning because you don’t get your sun exposure at that time of day. You’re probably asleep, and even if you are up, you’re not outside without any clothes on.
If you live in northern latitudes, getting enough vitamin D is already a problem, and this time of year it’s worse. In effect, the time change decreases your vitamin D even more.
Why should you care about that? Because the study I mentioned shows that vitamin D makes you stronger. And it lowers your injury rate. In another study, adding a vitamin D supplement increased muscle fiber, improved muscle strength and also reduced falls by 59 percent.3
To make sure you have enough vitamin D so you can stay strong and healthy this winter, you need to do two things: Take in the right amount, and make sure you can absorb it.
1. Get Your Vitamin D From Potent Sources: Eating fish a few times a week will provide you with a lot of the vitamin D you need. You might want to stick with the smaller, cold-water fish like sardines to avoid the mercury in some of the larger fish.
But I understand that some people don’t like fish. Others find fish too expensive, especially if the fish is seasonal. In that case, try supplementing with some cod liver oil. It’s not the same cod liver oil your mom may have threatened you with when you were a kid. Today’s version has a clean, fresh lemony taste.
And check out just how powerful cod liver oil is compared to some other pretty good food sources of Vitamin D:
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If you can’t get enough vitamin D through what you eat, take at least 2,000 IU of the D3 form each day. Milk, juice, bread and other “fortified” foods are not good sources of vitamin D. They usually have the D2 form which is not the kind your body uses.
Also, don’t rely on your multivitamin to give you enough vitamin D. It will only have 600 IU or even less, which is the government’s recommended daily allowance (RDA). But remember, the RDA is only the very least recommended. You need a lot more than that for optimal health.
2. How To Keep Your Vitamin D: Several things can interfere with vitamin D absorption. High cortisol levels from stress, not eating enough fat (vitamin D can only be transported through your body by fat), pharmaceutical drugs (antacids and blood thinners are just two), and inflammation.
It may be surprising, because we think of vitamins as antioxidants, which fight inflammation. But one of the most potent markers of inflammation, a cytokine called TNF-alpha, seems to block your cells from receiving vitamin D.4 So even if you take in plenty of vitamin D, inflammation will reduce how much your body receives.
To fight this effect, you can use the flavonoid berberine. It comes from the root of the coptis chinensis plant. Researchers have discovered that berberine squelches your body’s production of inflammatory cytokines like TNF-alpha.5
You can find the dried roots of coptis chinensis at most Asian specialty stores. They even have the dried root powder available online. There is also some berberine in turmeric, barberry and its cousin, the Oregon grape. To supplement with capsules, take from 200 to 500 mg or berberine extract per day.
1 Dawson-Hughes, B., “Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and muscle atrophy…” Proc. Nutr. Soc. Nov. 2011;1:1-4
2 Dirks-Naylor, A.J., Lennon-Edwards, S., “The effects of vitamin D on skeletal muscle function and cellular signaling,” J. Steroid Biochem. Mol. Biol. July 2011;125(3-5):159-68
3 Sato, Y., Iwamoto, J., Kanoko, T., et al, “Low-dose vitamin D prevents muscular atrophy and reduces falls and hip fractures in women after stroke: a randomized controlled trial,” Cerebrovasc. Dis. 2005;20(3):187-92
4 Lu, X., Farmer, P., Rubin, J., et al, “Integration of the NfkappaB p65 subunit into the vitamin D receptor transcriptional complex…” J. Cell. Biochem. July 2004 1;92(4):833-48
5 Enka, Ronny, et al, “Differential effect of Rhizoma coptidis and its main alkaloid compound berberine on TNF-α induced NFκB translocation in human keratinocytes,” Journal of Ethnopharm, January 2007;109(1):3;170-175