Mia Lane
The message of how important vitamin D has now reached almost everyone. However, how the vitamin should be taken correctly always causes uncertainties. Our tips give you all the information you need to optimize your vitamin D supply.
15 tips for a healthy supply of vitamin D
Hardly any vitamin is researched as intensively as vitamin D. New studies on the effect of the sun vitamin on very different organs, diseases, and disease risks appear almost daily. Apart from its well-known bone-strengthening effect,
- Vitamin D also reduces the risk of infection,
- protects against flu,
- relieves chronic pain,
- reduces the risk of diabetes, dementia, and cancer,
- lowers cholesterol,
- improves fertility,
- repairs blood vessels and
- is also indispensable in autoimmune diseases.
Tip 1: Have your vitamin D levels measured
So that you can assess whether you should take vitamin D as a dietary supplement or whether you should enjoy the sun more in summer, first have your vitamin D level tested. Values below 30 ng/ml indicate a deficiency. A good target value is around 40 ng/ml. (If the values on your blood analysis are given in nmol/l, you can divide them by 2.5 to get the ng/ml values.)
Tip 2: Determine your individual vitamin D dose
Depending on the result, it will then be decided which dose you need. There are various ways of calculating the individually appropriate dose.
Tip 3: This is how healthy sunbathing works
If you’re reading this article in the summer, use the summer months to get your vitamin D levels up and replenish your vitamin D stores for the winter.
Tip 4: Shower after sunbathing: yes or no
In some places, it is recommended not to shower after sunbathing, as this would wash off the vitamin D precursor formed in the skin.
This point has not yet been fully clarified. In general, however, it can be assumed that vitamin D can only be formed in living skin cells – and living skin cells simply cannot be washed off.
Tip 5: Eat foods with vitamin D
It is hardly possible to maintain vitamin D levels through diet alone. Because most foods only provide a little vitamin D. Of course, small amounts of vitamin D also help to stabilize the vitamin D level. In the purely vegetable area, it is mushrooms that contain vitamin D (e.g. porcini mushrooms 124 IU, chanterelles 84 IU).
However, the mushrooms should have grown in the open air (wild mushrooms), which can almost always be ruled out with cultivated mushrooms (although nutritional tables for e.g. mushrooms indicate a vitamin D value of 76 IU). However, the latter can be placed in the sun with the slats up in the summer and then dried for the winter. The mushrooms then store a lot of vitamin D and can provide you with the vitamin during the dark months.
Tip 6: Go to the solarium every two weeks.
If necessary, visit a high-quality tanning salon with solariums that also work with UVB radiation. Every one to two weeks you could have whole body irradiation there to at least prevent a drop in vitamin D levels. The duration or dose depends of course on the skin type and the need.
Studies had shown that one visit to a solarium per month had no benefit in terms of vitamin D levels, as they fell despite sunbeds. With a solarium sunbath every two weeks, the initial vitamin D level remained constant and with one visit per week, it increased.
Regular solarium visits are still associated with an increased risk of skin cancer, so it is safer (also in terms of dosage) to take vitamin D from a dietary supplement, especially in winter and spring.
Tip 7: Take vitamin D as a dietary supplement
Vitamin D comes in different forms as dietary supplements – drops and capsules – and also in different dosages. Drops can be dosed particularly well individually. The vitamin D3 drops of effective nature contain 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 per drop.
Since food supplements can only be sold in low doses, retailers must write on higher-dose preparations (e.g. for capsules with 10,000 IU each) that you can only take 1 capsule every 14 days.
Tip 8: Take vitamin D with some fat
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin and should therefore always be taken with some fat. However, a very small amount of fat is generally sufficient, e.g. B. the fat in salad dressing or spread. You should not only take vitamin D3 capsules in water. The drops mentioned in tip 6 already contain oil and can be taken without any additional ingredients.
Tip 9: Avoid overdosing
Precisely because vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, it can easily be stored in adipose tissue and accumulate there. In this way, high doses can lead to an overdose, since excess vitamin D cannot be excreted regularly with the urine like water-soluble vitamins. So let z. B. Measure your vitamin D level again after 2 to 3 months after starting your supplementation.
Tip 10: Take vitamin D3 with vitamin K2 and vitamin A
Vitamin D3 increases the absorption of calcium into the blood. To ensure that this calcium does not remain in the blood but is transported to the bones, vitamin K2 is generally taken together with vitamin D3, e.g. B. 100 µg of vitamin K2 with up to 2,500 IU of vitamin D per day.
If you take vitamin D together with vitamin A, then the vitamin D level rises higher. Vitamin D can also work better in the presence of vitamin A. You can read details in our article Vitamin D needs vitamin A. We would recommend about 6 – 9 mg of beta carotene per day, which corresponds to 1 – 1.5 mg of vitamin A.
Tip 11: Vitamin D and Calcium
Since vitamin D promotes calcium absorption from the intestine, calcium should only be taken with vitamin D if the diet is very low in calcium.
Tip 12: Take vitamin D with magnesium
Magnesium activates vitamin D. Therefore, 200 to 300 mg of magnesium in the form of a dietary supplement is a good accompaniment to vitamin D. With a magnesium-rich diet, 200 mg or only sporadic intake is sufficient.
Tip 13: The best time to take vitamin D
There is still no precise data that would show that vitamin D should now be taken in the morning or in the evening. Although a vitamin D deficiency is considered a contributing factor to sleep disorders, taking it in the evening or right before going to bed is not ideal, according to user reports. Therefore, it is more advisable to take it in the morning or at noon.
In any case, the vitamin is better absorbed with or after a meal than on its own on an empty stomach.
Tip 14: Vitamin D and medication
Some medications disrupt vitamin D absorption or vitamin D metabolism in general and thus contribute to widespread vitamin D deficiency, e.g. B. cortisone, a cholesterol-lowering drug with the active ingredient cholestyramine, weight loss pills (e.g. orlistat), and many others.
Statins and so-called thiazide diuretics (for high blood pressure and heart failure) can increase vitamin D levels. When taking medication, therefore, discuss with your doctor or naturopath whether and how you could integrate vitamin D intake.
Tip 15: Apply vitamin D to the skin
Vitamin D can also be applied to the skin if there is an intolerance to oral vitamin D preparations. We explain how to do this in our article Applying vitamin D to the skin.
