10 Signs You Have a Vitamin D Deficiency (How to Boost Vitamin D Naturally)

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Today, we'll be focusing on vitamin D deficiency, and it's one of the biggest nutrient deficiencies in the world. And I'll go through the top 10 signs that you might be vitamin D deficient and how to raise those levels naturally. And let me say, this is a big deal.

It's tied to everything from osteoporosis and weak bones to hormone imbalances with testosterone in men and estrogen and progesterone in women. It's tied to mood disorders and mental health issues.

And so It is critically important that we make sure that your vitamin D levels are where they should be, and I'll go through that range, also how much sun you should be getting to get you the exact right amount of vitamin D, and so much more on today's episode.

Before I dive in though, make sure to subscribe to the channel and follow my weekly wellness newsletter for my top tips and information on how to heal your body naturally, and you'll get that Once a week in your inbox with that newsletter. So make sure to subscribe to the show and check out the new newsletter. You can click the link in the show notes.

So here's a little bit about vitamin D. First off, it's a fat-soluble vitamin. Remember that it's fat-soluble. Later on, I'll talk about why when you take it, you should take it with fat if you're going to consume it orally. But again, it's a fat-soluble vitamin that helps your body absorb other nutrients like calcium and phosphorus, which are essential for healthy bones and teeth.

It also plays a crucial role in supporting the immune system, supports brain function, hormone creation, and mood regulation. According to the National Institutes of Health, the NIH, vitamin D deficiency affects approximately 42% of the US population, with higher rates seen in older adults, people with darker skin, and those living in areas with limited sunlight exposure.

Now, I do want to point out, 42% of people are vitamin D deficient. That also doesn't mean in the optimal range. And that's something that you're going to notice as I go through some of these different lectures on vitamins and minerals and the range you should be in. There's a few ranges to consider. One is you're depleted so bad that your body can't do, it can't create bones, right?

So I mean, it's gonna lead to osteoporosis or major hormone dysfunctions. There's that range where you are majorly deficient. But there's also moderately or in a minor way deficient, you're borderline. Now, your body isn't going to be optimal in that case and it's not going to promote longevity to where you're living longer and you're living a vibrant life. That's the range you want to be in.

So just know it's not just 42% of the population, it's probably close to 80% of the population that don't have ideal vitamin D levels. And so it's actually much higher than the 42% when it comes to people in total that don't have optimal levels. As we talked about, vitamin D is important for a lot of things. It's important for bone health. It's important for immune system function.

In fact, studies show that it enhances the pathogen-fighting effects of white blood cells, reducing inflammation and promoting immune defense. This is important for fighting cancer. There are several studies showing that vitamin D Helps fight cancer. There are studies showing it helps fight the common cold and flu. It fights autoimmune disease.

So there are so many reasons why we need vitamin D. In addition, as I mentioned, mood and brain health, cell growth and regulation, and even cellular function. It's important for so, so many things. And I want to talk about hormones that vitamin D impacts because here's the thing to know about vitamin D. It's not only a vitamin. It's also known as a prohormone.

So more than probably any nutrient you could take, it impacts your hormone levels. And a couple of the hormones it impacts, or the couple of the different ways it impacts your hormones, is through what's known as calcium and parathyroid hormone. And vitamin D is crucial for calcium absorption in our intestines.

And when vitamin D levels are low, our parathyroid glands produce more what's called PTH. Which then can pull calcium out of our bones and weaken them. And so it's very important, as we mentioned, for calcium absorption.

It's also important— this is why there are studies showing that if you take a calcium supplement, a solo calcium supplement without vitamin D or magnesium, it actually can cause calcification of your arteries. Because calcium, if it doesn't get used up by your bones and other organs, It can get lodged in the in your arteries, in the plaque there, and calcify and cause heart disease.

So if you're taking a a cheap, ineffective supplement calcium supplement specifically that doesn't have vitamin D and magnesium, it's worse for you than taking a calcium supplement in the first place. And so this is why anytime you're buying supplements, they should be food-based and have the other cofactors in with them like vitamin D to support absorption.

But as I mentioned, vitamin D is critical for calcium absorption. For those hormones. It's also critical for insulin. Vitamin D plays a role in insulin production, which is vital for regulation— of course, we know— of blood sugar levels. And studies have shown that low vitamin D can lead to insulin resistance, which can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.

In fact, vitamin D is one of the top 3 nutrients, along with chromium and magnesium, that I recommend for people that have diabetes or prediabetes or anyone that wants to support insulin levels, it is crucially important for that hormone.

It's also very important for thyroid hormones, and there's evidence that vitamin D influences TSH, T3 to T4, which can help regulate— we know— your thyroid hormone production, your metabolism. And you want to make sure you have the proper vitamin D levels. Now, part of vitamin D might be that it impacts insulin, which that impacts the thyroid hormone levels.

But either way, if you have hypothyroidism, if you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, those especially, you want to make sure that your vitamin D levels are optimal. And we'll get into those ranges here in just a minute. I also want to mention it's also important for sex hormones. Vitamin D impacts reproductive hormones.

In women specifically, low levels of vitamin D have been linked to menstrual irregularities and fertility issues. A study in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that vitamin D deficiency was associated with lower estrogen levels, which can affect ovulation and reproductive health and also cause menstrual cramps and other painful disorders.

And so it's important to know that vitamin D, for women out there, if you want to support your fertility, you need to make sure your vitamin D levels are optimal and support supporting your regular hormone production. Now, in men, it might even be more important.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to low testosterone in men, and research published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine indicates that higher vitamin D levels are associated with increased testosterone production, which is crucial for male fertility and overall health.

And let me just say, it's not— it's not— when I've looked at this research on vitamin D and testosterone, I've looked at multiple studies, I looked at meta-analysis, it's not like it made just a little difference, or sometimes it did or sometimes it didn't. No, in most men it really has a significant impact.

If you have low vitamin D levels, it's almost guaranteed to cause you to have lower testosterone, which will cause you to be weak, which will cause you to lack energy, which will cause you to not necessarily even feel like a man. It'll cause you to have lower self-esteem. You're just going to be weak.

And so it's very important for men that you pay attention to what your vitamin D levels are and make sure you're optimizing them.

There's a lot of men today spending way too much time inside scrolling on social media, playing video games, watching TV, rather than being outside and working out and eating foods that are full of healthy fat and vitamin D. And so your testosterone levels are low because of that. We need to optimize vitamin D for testosterone.

Now I want to walk you through the top 10 warning signs that you're vitamin D deficient. And the first one is this: if you are frequently ill or have infections.

If you're getting sick more often than usual, it could be a sign of low vitamin D. And a study published in the British Medical Journal found that people with low vitamin D were 30% more likely to get respiratory infections like the cold and the flu compared with those with normal and adequate levels.

So it's really, it's pretty significant when you look at if your vitamin D levels are low and how often you'll get sick. Also, fatigue and tiredness is associated with low vitamin D. Bone pain or low back pain and neck pain. Vitamin D plays a major role In the health of your bones and your joints.

And a study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research found that people with low vitamin D levels were twice as likely to suffer from chronic low back pain. Twice as likely. And so it's very, very important, as we talked about vitamin D, for helping create healthy joints, bones, and tissues and alleviate back pain and neck pain. Also, another sign, depression and mood swings.

One of the biggest reasons why people have seasonal affective mood disorder, so any sort of depression or feeling down on yourself when it comes, especially if we're talking about non-summer months, especially getting into the winter, it's most often caused by vitamin D deficiency.

And so if you are moving into the fall or you're in the wintertime or even early spring and you're feeling just down, likely you need to take vitamin D. And you need to get outside as much as you can, even when it's cold outside. Still get a little bit of time outside going on a walk. Moving outside is going to help that. Number five, impaired wound healing.

If you have things that are not healing as fast as they should, or even things like age spots, that's that can be vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is crucial for repair of wounds. It's also important for reducing inflammation. It's important to prevent hair loss, severe hair loss or hair thinning, particularly in. Women is connected to vitamin D deficiency.

There was actually a report, a study published in the Journal of Dermatology, and they found that women with hair loss often had lower levels of vitamin D compared to those without hair issues. And then there's muscle pain. Vitamin D supports muscle recovery. This is important for athletes as well if they want to recover as quickly as possible.

It's important for, as we talked about, bone loss and osteoporosis. It's also important for preventing stress fractures in athletes. I remember Running when I was younger, and I remember some people in cross-country and they were getting bone fractures, these kids in high school.

And most likely, yes, their training volume might have been too high, but also in all likelihood, other people, other kids had the same training volume. They didn't get stress fractures. So it can be due to poor ergonomics or shoes or overtraining. But vitamin D, according to medical studies, is often also associated with stress fractures.

And last thing here, high blood pressure and heart disease. There's some evidence linking vitamin D deficiency to an increased risk of high blood pressure by about a 30% higher, higher increased risk of blood pressure, according to a study out of the American Journal of Hypertension. So there are so, so many studies.

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Now, we went through the biggest warning signs, but there are other conditions that are associated with vitamin D deficiency. As I mentioned, osteopenia and osteoporosis. Here's another big one, Autoimmune disease like rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis are linked to vitamin D deficiency.

Cardiovascular disease due to higher levels of inflammation, heart disease and stroke are associated with vitamin D deficiency. Diabetes, especially type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease, gastrointestinal disorders like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis are linked to vitamin D deficiency. Obesity is linked to vitamin D deficiency.

So it's so important that we make sure we have normal and optimal levels of vitamin D. Now, according to the NIH, the 25-hydroxy vitamin D test is the most accurate method to measure how much vitamin D is in your body. And this measures the level of vitamin D in your blood, and doctors use it to determine if you need supplementation. Now, what they consider normal levels are 20 to 50 ng/mL.

And lower than 20, by the way, is very low. Let me say this. If somebody is at like 25 or 29, that's still too low. It may fall within the normal level, but that's still going to predispose somebody to having low testosterone or weak bones. And so it's not optimal. What's optimal, according to what I personally believe, is probably closer to 50 to 75 ng/mL.

But again, being in the 20s or even 30s, That's definitely not optimal. Now, if you're in the 40s, you're probably okay, okay? But I prefer people to be in the 50s and 60s or so when it comes to vitamin D levels when we're talking about the optimal range where your body is functioning at the highest level possible and you're optimizing longevity.

Now, when you're taking vitamin D as a supplement, I want to mention some things that help you better absorb vitamin D. The first one is magnesium. Magnesium helps activate vitamin D, so if you're low on magnesium, you might not be absorbing vitamin D properly. The other one is vitamin K2. It works with vitamin D to ensure that calcium gets directed to your bones rather than your arteries.

And then of course, healthy fats. Remember, it's a fat-soluble vitamin. Your body needs fat to absorb the vitamin. Since vitamin D is fat-soluble, you want to eat it with something like coconut oil or avocado or a handful of nuts like walnuts or a little bit of olive oil.

That's going to increase the absorption In fact, there was a study published in the Journal of American College of Nutrition, and they found that people that ate more healthy fats had higher levels of vitamin D absorption rates.

So remember, if you're taking a vitamin D supplement, you want to make sure it has magnesium, it has K2, and when you take that supplement, it has healthy fats in there as well. Now, food and supplementation is a good way for you to get vitamin D, but it's not the best way. The best way is via the sun.

The major source of our body's vitamin D comes from our own production in our skin and connected to the liver. And this requires the ultraviolet rays from the sun to form vitamin D3. Both the liver and the kidneys are needed to create the active form of vitamin D within your body.

And a study was done in Valencia, Spain, and it measured the amount of sunlight necessary to produce a sufficient amount of vitamin D. By the way, Valencia is about the same latitude as Kansas City, Missouri, right? Kind of, you know, smack dab in the middle of the country. And the researchers took into account the amount of clothing and the season of year.

In spring and summer, 25% of the body— that's the hands, the face, the neck, and arms— is exposed to the sun.

And in these seasons, you need about 8 to 10 minutes of sun exposure at noon, which produces the correct amount you need daily of vitamin D. In the winter, only 10% of the body is typically exposed, and you nearly need 2 hours of sun exposure at noon, from around noon to 2 or 11 to 1, to produce a sufficient amount of vitamin D. And this is why I've recommended for years in the winter If you're not in Florida or Southern California and outside constantly, you need to be supplementing with vitamin D in the winter months.

Now listen, in the spring and the fall and the summer, if you know you are getting a good amount of sunlight every day and you're exposing your arms and your legs and you're able to get that sunlight, then you don't need to take vitamin D unless you— well, unless you've done a blood test and you know you're still deficient, then some people even need to do it. Yeah.

In the spring and in the fall, or if you live up in Canada or northern parts of the US, you need to typically do more as well. But basically, you know, if you're getting 20 minutes of direct sunlight on your body a day in the summer, let's say, you don't need to take a vitamin D supplement.

So here's how much time you need to actually spend in the sun to get 4,000 to 5,000 IUs daily of vitamin D, which is a therapeutic dose. Okay, now you can get away with 1,000 Yeah. So, I personally like to get about 4,000 IUs, but most people want to get about 4,000 to 5,000 IUs.

So, if you are sunbathing in the summer at a moderate level or late spring, early fall, you need to sunbathe about 20 minutes in order to get the correct amount of vitamin D. If you are during those times of year and you're going to be outside going for a walk or a jog, something like that, just spending time outside, let's say you've got a short and t-shirt on, you need to spend time about 1 hour a day total outside.

Other things like golf, where you're under a golf cart, you're in and outside here and there, you need to be about 3 hours a day outside. Okay, so, so obviously, if you're sunbathing, you're going to, you know, you only need 20 minutes in the sun versus if you're walking outside, you need about an hour a day for those optimal high levels of vitamin D there as well.

And I do want to say this as well, there is concern in questions regarding the aging of your skin with sunlight. I see a lot of influencers online saying you should wear— you literally shouldn't— you should never go outside with sunscreen. Okay. I know quite a few influencers that say that in order to be as beautiful as possible, age as slowly as possible, get essentially zero sun.

I don't think that's healthy. I don't think it's natural. I think that the optimal is this: you get about 20 minutes, okay, of direct sunlight. Or here's the thing, you never want to get burnt. That ages your skin dramatically. That causes systemic inflammation in your body. You never want to burn your skin.

You want to get about, again, 20 minutes of direct sunlight a day or be outside an hour a day. Now, I will say this, let's say you've got your 20 minutes, okay, so you feel like you got a good amount, the UV is pretty high, then cover up, okay, or then put on sunscreen.

But in most cases, you want to at least a few minutes, if not 20 minutes, on your skin before you go and totally cover up for the health of your internal organs.

And I think generally speaking, the people that I know who look very, very healthy even into their 80s, 90s, and 100-plus— like, I, I've done a, I've done a lot of research over the years on people in Okinawa, Japan, and a lot of these people that have aged very, very well.

And one thing I can tell you about most of them is, is that they're not lathering on sunscreen, and they don't have a philosophy of, I will never let the sun ever touch my skin. The longest living people do not have that philosophy. The longest living people, they get some sun, they spend a lot of time outdoors, but they also cover up before they get burnt.

So that is the philosophy you want to follow when it comes to the longevity of your skin and the longevity of your internal organs. Maximizing your health for those vitamin D levels. Here's a rule, by the way. It's called the shadow rule.

The shadow rule is this: if your shadow is longer than you are tall— so you're standing there and you're looking down and your shadow is very long, it's longer than you are tall. So for me, I'm 6 foot, almost 6'1. When I look at my shadow, it should not be over 6 feet.

If it is, then that means that my body is no longer— even, even though the sun is out, okay, it's probably like 5 o'clock in the evening, something like that, okay. Well, now I know that my body is not really getting vitamin D or creating vitamin D itself from the UV rays it's getting from the sun. It's called the shadow rule.

And so, if you're going outside at 8:00 AM or it's 5:00 or 6:00 PM at night, in all likelihood, you're not getting the same vitamin D levels. Typically, it's going to be more between 9:00 AM and probably really 3:30 PM for you to get the optimal levels of vitamin D. I want to dive a little bit here into vitamin D foods. By the way, vitamin D foods are not a replacement for sunshine.

We all need to get sun and we all need to get as much as possible without getting burnt or harming our skin. But there are foods rich in vitamin D and the highest tend to be oily fish like salmon, sardines, tuna, and mackerel. The Journal of Nutrition found that people who ate fish twice a week had significantly higher vitamin D levels compared to those who didn't. The next is wild mushrooms.

In fact, 1 cup of cremini mushrooms treated with UV light contains around 1,110 IU of vitamin D. After that, it's going to be egg yolks. 1 Egg yolk contains about 40 IU of vitamin D. And then beef liver, uh, 1 3.5-ounce serving has about 50 IUs of vitamin D. And then Um, cod liver oil has a little bit there as well, but these tend to be the foods that have some vitamin D levels.

And then supplementation. If you don't get enough sunlight and vitamin D from your diet, supplements can help. Vitamin D3 is the most effective form, and there's a large-scale study done— it was actually a meta-analysis from the Cochrane database— and it showed that vitamin D supplements Reduced the risk of bone fractures in older adults by 15%.

So remember, the ideal source is from the sun, but in addition, you want to get a little bit from your food and you definitely want to get some from supplements when you are not getting sunshine that day. And you typically want to get, for adults, around 4,000 to 5,000 IUs daily. In kids, and now depends on the age, but let's say 12 to 18, Typically about 2,000 IU daily.

Now, if you are extremely deficient and you take a blood test and you are, let's call it 15, you know, or 20 on your vitamin D test, I recommend 10,000 IUs daily, 5,000 IUs twice a day with breakfast and with dinner. That's ideal. And you also want to make sure also with that you're getting more time outside. Almost all of us are not spending enough time outside across the board.

Way too much time on devices, not enough time outside. So just know, generally speaking, all of us need to schedule more time outside. Now, I want to mention something else. There is a Chinese medicine herb that is typically recommended to support vitamin D levels or work alongside vitamin D to support our immune systems and hormonal health. And the herb is called astragalus.

This herb, that's one of the top 5 prescribed herbs in all of Chinese medicine, astragalus is believed to improve immune function and also help with vitamin D levels.

And so that's another herb when we're going into the fall and the winter months, I prescribe and recommend to patients constantly because it is so beneficial for so many things, but vitamin D and taking astragalus together is really beneficial.

Also remember, to absorb vitamin D, you want to take it with magnesium and vitamin K2 and get more healthy fats in your diet and take fat with whatever meal you're going to take that supplement. As we talked about, vitamin D is essential for so many things. It's essential for bone health, immune health, hormonal health, and mental well-being.

And if you're experiencing any of the signs I mentioned, whether it be weak bones, whether it be mood disorders, whether it be a weak immune system, hormone imbalance, I want to encourage you, get your vitamin D levels checked. It is so easy to get a vitamin D test kit sent to your home and just mail in the test. It is that easy.

But even if you decide not to get the test, you typically know if your vitamin D levels are low based on some of the things I shared with you today. And with natural light, proper diet, and supplementation when necessary, you can restore your vitamin D levels, which will make a big, big impact on your health.

Remember, vitamin D is not just a vitamin, which vitamins are important, it's also a pro hormone. And this impacts every single hormone in your body. You want to make sure your levels are normal. If you don't think they're normal, you want to get them checked, and you want to make sure you spend more time outside, that you supplement as well.

And that will make a massive, massive difference in your health. I want to say, I've taken care of tens of thousands of patients over the years, and there have been a few when I had them start supplementing with vitamin D, it was like a miracle for them.

You know, I'm thinking about— I had a patient who lived up in Minnesota, and they were having chronic— they had autoimmune disease, they were dealing with depression, a number of issues. We started supplementing with 5,000 IU of vitamin D twice a day. And after 2 weeks, they said, I literally am a different person.

Like, my mood, my— the way that I'm thinking, the way that I'm acting, I'm literally a totally different person. Their autoimmune disease markers actually got improved by 50%. I mean, I can think of so many people. I had a man with low testosterone, and we had him start supplementing with vitamin D, and it was the only change we made.

And he took a test a couple months later and his numbers had gone up by over 100 points. I mean, so just know if you are deficient and you then start supplementing or getting more sunlight exposure, it could be a miracle for you and your body. Vitamin D is that powerful and that important.

If you're missing out, you want to make sure that you are covered and you have plenty of vitamin D. All right, guys, I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Each and every week we're exploring the science and principles on how to take your health to the highest level physically, mentally, and spiritually. Hey, make sure to subscribe here.

I don't want you to miss out. And share. There are so many people who don't know the truth about vitamin D, so please share this on social media. Help get the word out there. I'm so grateful for all of you that are on mission with me, you subscribers out there. Thank you so much. And also, hey, don't forget about the weekly newsletter. You can find that in the show notes.

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