The Importance Of Vitamin D

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Growing up, many of us were told about the importance of vitamins—maybe by our parents, maybe in our health class. By now it’s pretty common knowledge that we should strive to get enough vitamins every day…but what does that really mean? “Vitamins” is a pretty broad category, and each one aids the body in totally different ways. I think it’s important that we each know which vitamins we need, and how getting enough of them (or not enough) impacts how our bodies function.

In this week’s blog post, I want to focus on vitamin D, which is undoubtedly one of the most important ones, especially for us women over 50.

Here’s what you need to know about vitamin D.

Why vitamin D is essential

It’s been estimated that about 1 billion people worldwide are deficient in vitamin D—that’s 15% of the population! When you consider how much our bodies need vitamin D, that number feels really staggering!

Vitamin D plays a huge role in our bone health, our immunity (including disease prevention), our mood and mental health, and much more. It helps our bodies better absorb calcium, which is a fundamental building block of our bones and teeth. (And for those who don’t know, our calcium levels are a significant factor in whether or not we develop osteoporosis which you can read more about on my blog here How To Exercise For Osteoporosis Prevention)

Vitamin D can also help reduce chronic inflammation, control infections, and decrease cancer cell growth. Scientists suspect that this critical vitamin has even more of a positive impact on the body than we’re aware of.

On the flip side, if we habitually are not getting our daily dose of vitamin D, we can develop unpleasant symptoms. Some of these, according to the Cleveland Clinic, are:

  • Fatigue

  • Muscle weakness

  • Bone pain

  • Mood changes and depression

  • Cramps

Vitamin D deficiency can also cause serious health issues, like low blood calcium levels (hypocalcemia), low blood phosphate levels (hypophosphatemia), rickets (softening of bones during childhood), and osteomalacia (softening of bones in adults). To ensure that you aren’t at risk for any of these symptoms or conditions, it’s crucial that you get enough vitamin D.

How much vitamin D should we be getting?

As is the case with most health topics, the answer to this question can vary depending on who you ask/where you look. The National Institute of Health recommends the following dosages:

  • For women 19 to 70 years old, 600 IU of vitamin D per day

  • For women 70 and older, 800 IU of vitamin D per day

IU stands for “international unit,” and it’s just a standard unit of measurement that’s typically used for vitamins. When you look at vitamin D supplements on the shelf, you’ll always see their vitamin D content listed in terms of IU (e.g. one bottle might say 400 IU, while another says 5000 IU).

Now, with a vitamin as beneficial as vitamin D, you may automatically think that more is better—that the higher IU number you can buy, the better. Be forewarned: this is NOT the case.

Getting your daily vitamin intake is a balancing act. You want to get an adequate amount, but not overdo it. Fortunately, the threshold for "too much" is high. According to the Mayo Clinic, taking 60,000 IU of vitamin D per day has been shown to cause toxicity. This is about 100 times more than the recommended daily intake of 600 IU, so it’s very unlikely that you would even get close to that amount just by taking a daily supplement or trying to add vitamin D-rich foods to your diet. 

Speaking of vitamin D-rich foods…

How to get more vitamin D

There are three primary sources from which we can get vitamin D: from food, from supplements, and from the sun.

In terms of foods rich in vitamin D, unfortunately the list isn’t super long. Some of those foods contain vitamin D naturally—like sardines, salmon, and egg yolks—while others often have vitamin D added to them—like dairy milks and yogurts, plant milks, etc.

Other foods that contain vitamin D, either naturally or through fortification, include:

  • Tuna fish (canned)

  • Sardines

  • Beef liver

  • Shrimp

  • Oysters

  • Goat cheese

  • Pork tenderloin

  • Tofu

  • Herring

  • Mushrooms (ideally ones that are exposed to sunlight)

  • Caviar/fish roe

  • Oatmeal

Many cereals, milks, and yogurts are fortified with vitamin D, because as I mentioned earlier, we need vitamin D to properly absorb calcium.

The easiest way to fulfill your vitamin D quote for the day is to take a supplement. Vitamin D supplements can be found everywhere—online, in health food stores, grocery stores, you name it. It’s up to you how you would like to consume your supplement, be it in pill, capsule, spray, or liquid form. They even make vitamin D gummies now, if you’re into that!

Finally, we have the sun. It doesn’t take a ton of sunlight to get all the vitamin D we need—eight to 15 minutes a day is said to be enough. But we have to be wary of the sun’s damaging UV rays, because too much sun exposure can lead to skin cancer. Always, always, always wear sunscreen outside, even on overcast days, to protect your skin.

I hope you found this blog post on Vitamin D helpful! If you enjoyed it, I hope you’ll consider joining The Pure Joy Squad—my membership-based community of women over 50! Squad Members get to see EVERY piece of content I put out, plus they get exclusive access to me and our PJW experts (think dermatologists, psychologists, sex experts, menopause doctors, and more)!

Follow THIS LINK to join the Squad!!

Xo,

Renata