Different Sources Of Vitamin D
The natural source of Vitamin D is sun exposure. When the skin is exposed to sunlight, then you will get an adequate Vitamin D supply. You can get the maximum sun exposure during the summers. However, the Vitamin D supply is comparatively less in the winter season. Apart from this, there are many other food items that help to supply the vitamin D. The following are some of the major sources of Vitamin D.
- Cooked salmon
- Cod liver oil
- Canned tuna
- Whole milk
- Yogurt
- Cheese
The Role Of Vitamin D In Our Body
Vitamin D benefits the body in various ways. The most important role of Vitamin D is that it helps in the absorption of calcium. Apart from this Vitamin D helps in building up the bones and keeping them healthy and strong. It also helps in the blocking of parathyroid hormone. This hormone can cause the bones to become brittle. Talking about hormones, Vitamin D is also an unique vitamin in the sense that your body turns it into a hormone.
The most important aspect of Vitamin D is that it strengthens the immune system and helps to make the muscle system strong. It is very important that you should have a strong immune system because a strong immune system helps to fight various infections and diseases. Vitamin D helps to regulate the blood pressure as well, so if you are consuming too little Vitamin D, then it can lead to high blood pressure.
Vitamin D affects your mental health as well. Thus, a deficiency of Vitamin D can affect the development of the brain as well the brain function. Vitamin D activates those genes that help to release the neurotransmitters. The deficiency of Vitamin D is also one of the causes of depression.
Baseline Characteristics Of Study Samples
Of the 169 dialysis patients screened for study entry, we excluded individuals with missing information on serum levels of vitamin D , with a history of depression and anxiety , leukaemia , and losing a family member in the past 30 days . The final analysis included 156 patients . Antihypertensive therapy was administered in 82.1% of dialysis patients. There were no significant differences in age and gender between the included patients and the excluded patients.
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Does Vitamin D Help With Sad
Medical professionals often prescribe vitamin D to help with seasonal affective disorder . Studies show that it might be as effective as light therapy. Since the 1980s, light therapy is one of the main forms of treatment for this type of depression. People with SAD typically have a vitamin D deficiency.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health , seasonal affective disorder is a form of depression that people get during certain seasons. They tend to get depressed during the fall from the winter months when there is less sunlight, but it can happen during spring and summer as well. This rarer kind of SAD is summer-pattern SAD or summer depression.
Other forms of treatment for SAD include:
How Can You Prevent Vitamin D Supplements From Making You Anxious
First, you need to make sure you are getting the right vitamin D dosage for your organism.
How much is that?
Unless you have an autoimmune condition or are otherwise known to be deficient in vitamin D, this dosage would be of about 10,000 IU per day.
If you are thinking about getting pregnant, expecting or lactating check the correct vitamin D for a pregnant woman.
Next, you must make sure you are not magnesium-deficient.
If you are, the extra demands vitamin D puts on your magnesium supplies could end up depleting them. Then, you could begin feeling the symptoms of magnesium deficiency, including anxiety.
Thats why its recommended that you supplement with magnesium.
If you are supplementing with vitamin D, you should be supplementing with magnesium
Also, if you are on a high-dose vitamin D protocol, like the Coimbra Protocol, you must make sure you are following the safety guidelines. These include a dairy-free low-calcium diet along with increased fluid intake and regular blood and urine tests. These are to ensure your calcium levels remain within the normal range.
When you take these recommendations into account you might be surprised with the results.
Instead of keeping you awake at night, vitamin D might become yet another ally in helping you relieve your symptoms of anxiety and even depression.
How?
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Natural Health: Vitamins To Help With Anxiety And Panic Attacks
Q. I have always been a shy person, not really comfortable in strange situations or with people who I dont know very well, but recently I have become more anxious than usual and prone to panic attacks.
I am not interested in taking medications. Are there any supplements that might help me?
A. There are a number of nutrients that are important when it comes to reducing anxiety levels in particular the B vitamins.
While therapeutic doses of individual vitamins have been shown to be beneficial in alleviating certain symptoms, it is always a good idea to take a good B-complex alongside individual B vitamins since they work synergistically.
Vitamin B1 is important for balancing blood sugar levels, which are a significant factor in anxiety levels.
Vitamin B3 plays a crucial role in the synthesis of serotonin and has been shown to help with anxiety at a dosage of 1,000-3,000mg per day.
Vitamin B5 supports the adrenal glands, which reduces stress and anxiety levels.
Vitamin B9 and vitamin B12 are important in balancing out depressive moods.
Vitamin B6 together with magnesium can balance out anxiety that occurs in conjunction with PMS.
Great foods for getting your B vitamins include liver, meats, whole grains, potatoes, bananas, legumes, nutritional yeast, and molasses.
Inositol is a water-soluble fatty lipid necessary for healthy cell production.
This can be a particularly useful nutrient to consider where obsessive rumination of thoughts is a problem.
More in this section
Its Not Just For Blood Clotting
Most doctors only think about vitamin K when theyre worried about your blood clotting, like when they put you on blood thinners.
But, this little known vitamin does so much more.
In fact, heres what Dr. John Cannell at the Vitamin D Council has to say about it
If you asked practicing physicians, I bet 99% would say vitamin K is only involved in blood clotting. However, there are vitamin K dependent proteins in multiple human tissues.
Blood clotting is simply the most urgent function of vitamin K, so, if vitamin K intake is restricted , vitamin K is first used by the liver to handle blood clotting so you dont bleed to death.
And, one of those tissues that utilize vitamin K that Dr. Cannell talks about is your brain, which is why studies have shown that supplementing with vitamin K2 can prevent both depression and anxiety by feeding your brain the proteins and lipids it needs to function optimally.
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What Are The Results Of The Research
The question is whether a higher intake of vitamin D from diet or supplements can relieve stress and other mood disorders. Some studies have documented such a relationship, but not all of them.
In one study, researchers found that people with depression who took vitamin D supplements for one year found that depressive symptoms improved. This conclusion is important as it came from a double-blind randomized study involving 441 people.
In another study in people with fibromyalgia, researchers found that vitamin D deficiency was more common in those with anxiety and depression .
Researchers in a meta-analysis in 2018 found that people with depression had lower levels of vitamin D. The same analysis found that people with low vitamin D also had a much higher risk of depression .
Despite these findings, it is clear that more research is needed to determine if vitamin D supplements can help those suffering from anxiety, mood disorders and mental health problems. However, there is no denying that overall health depends on the availability of this essential vitamin.
Note that the effect on reducing stress can also be indirect, as vitamin D is important for muscle function. A higher intake of diet can lead to increased physical activity and well-being, which can reduce stress.
At Vita4you.gr you will find a wide variety of vitamin D supplements!
References
What About Vitamin D Deficiency And Anxiety
Anxiety can lead to a wide variety of symptoms, such as feeling tense or having a sense of panic as well as physical symptoms like rapid breathing and an increased heart rate, according to the Mayo Clinic.
There’s not a lot of research into a potential relationship between vitamin D and anxiety.
One study compared the amount of calcidiol in small groups of adults with depression, anxiety symptoms and a symptom-free control group. It found lower levels of calcidiol in the study participants with anxiety disorders than in the control group, according to the results published in Physiological Research in June 2015.
Taking vitamin D supplements was effective at improving anxiety symptoms in patients with depression and low vitamin D levels, according to a September 2020 study published in Brain and Behavior.
But as the study authors note, additional studies are needed in this area to validate these findings.
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Vitamins And Minerals That Help Reduce Social Anxiety
Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Mental Art + Design / Stocksy United
What is the relationship between vitamins and anxiety? Vitamins and minerals play a key role in maintaining good physical and mental health. While you may think mostly about the physical health benefits of vitamins and minerals, deficiencies in these important parts of your diet could actually worsen your social anxiety.
Below is a list of vitamins and minerals with some relationship to anxiety, and the foods that you should consume to ensure you are not deficient.
Impact Of Vitamin D Deficiency On Mental Health
The body needs Vitamin D at the proper level for it to function as it should.
How Vitamin D Works In The Body
Your muscles, heart, brain, and immune system have vitamin D receptors. The body transports the vitamin to the kidneys and liver, where it converts into an active hormone. In this form, it assists the body in absorbing calcium.
Your body acquires vitamin D through sun exposure. Certain foods and supplements can also be sources of vitamin D. Dark-skinned people have a high level of melanin.
Itâs the component that determines coloring in the human and animal world. This pigmentation prevents the skin from absorbing vitamin D correctly.
How Vitamin D Deficiency Leads to Mental Health Effects
Low levels of the vitamin may contribute to schizophrenia in adults, depression, and seasonal affective disorder. Other health problems that can arise from the deficiency include:
- Low bone density
- Excessive weight loss or gain
- Trouble sleepingââ
If you experience any of these symptoms similar to depression, have your vitamin D levels checked. Your doctor will do a test to determine the level of the vitamin in your blood.
For depression diagnosis, you may have to complete a self-assessment test. A blood test can’t diagnose depression but may test other conditions that cause depressive symptoms.
Also Check: How Much Vitamin D In An Egg
Get The Nutrients Naturally
Dark-green, leafy vegetables, like spinach, kale and chard, contain plenty of calming magnesium as well as good amounts of the B vitamins. Whole, unrefined grains like oats, buckwheat, millet and quinoa also contain both magnesium and B vitamins.
Many high-magnesium foods are also a good source of calcium, especially spinach, turnip greens, mustard greens, collard greens, green beans and sea vegetables. Other sources of calcium include dairy products, sardines, sesame seeds, broccoli and celery. The herbs basil, thyme, rosemary, oregano, dill and peppermint are also good sources of calcium, as is cinnamon.
Can Vitamin D Supplements Cause Anxiety
- After getting inside your body, vitamin D will need to be transformed, transported and activated. All these steps require magnesium and will deplete your reserves of this mineral.
- In the long term, taking too much vitamin D without also supplementing with magnesium can lower your magnesium levels and this will have a negative effect over your nervous system.
- Because of how it promotes calcium absorption from food and calcium release from the bones into the blood, long-term high-dose vitamin D supplementation can cause your calcium blood levels to rise too much. This, in turn, will further increase your magnesium needs and negatively affect your nervous system.
- This is especially true if you are following a high-dose vitamin D protocol, like the Coimbra Protocol.
- Vitamin D has a great potential to help you deal with stress and contribute to a less anxious life. But, if you want to reap this benefit you need to make sure you keep supplementing with magnesium while also making sure your calcium levels are kept within their normal range.
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Vitamin D Deficiency And Anxiety
Nowadays many of us are a common victim of anxiety. Most of you attribute your anxiety to stress. However, believe or not, Vitamin D deficiency can also be one of the causes of anxiety. Usually, when a patient is suffering from intense sadness and fear, then he should be tested for Vitamin D deficiency. The following are the key symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency related anxiety:
- Fear, loneliness, and sorrow are some of the key symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency
- Insomnia or weight changes might result when you are suffering from Vitamin D deficiency
- Sweating and increased heartbeat as well as hypertension when you suffer from Vitamin D related anxiety
When you experience these symptoms make sure that you visit your physician at the earliest. The mistake most people do is that they try to counter the anxiety through anti-depressant pills. This will not be the right solution, and self-medication is not advisable, though natural, holistic self-help programs as well as other natural treatments are highly recommended. Anxiety and depression usually occur together. If Vitamin D related anxiety is left untreated, then it can lead to serious health issues. Thus, it is always better to nip the evil in the bud to avoid further complications.
Vitamin D and anxiety have a link with the lifestyle as well. For example, when you go out in the sunlight for your workouts or other activities then you are exposed to the sun, and it also helps to counter the anxiety level.
Vitamin D Deficiency In People Who Are Depressed
Collectively, the research on vitamin D supplementation and depression indicate that theres a correlation between the two but not a causation. In other words, while depressed individuals may have lower levels of vitamin D, that occurrence did not cause them to develop the illness.
If vitamin D deficiency were the cause, then supplementation to increase levels would likely have reduced the signs and symptoms of depression or prevented it.
The fact many of the groups vulnerable to depression are also prone to vitamin D deficiency may be responsible for the correlation between the two.
According to a study called Vitamin D and Depression: Where is all the Sunshine?, the groups at risk for vitamin D deficiency include the elderly, adolescents, obese individuals, and those with chronic illnesses.” The researchers also stated that it is these same groups that have also been reported to be at risk for depression.
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How Can I Calm My Anxiety Fast
Here are some helpful, actionable tips you can try the next time you need to calm down.Breathe. Admit that youre anxious or angry. Challenge your thoughts. Release the anxiety or anger. Visualize yourself calm. Think it through. Listen to music. Change your focus.More itemsMay 1, 2018
Where Does Vitamin D Come In
Vitamin D is a steroid hormone that can be obtained from your diet – in egg yolks, cod liver oils, fatty fish like salmon, sardines, herring, and mackerel, and in some fortified products such as margarine . It can also be synthesised in your skin during sunlight exposure. To become active in your body, however, vitamin D needs receptors , with the calcitriol receptor being the primary one.
The relationship between stress and vitamin D can be a bit of a vicious cycle. For example, the hormone cortisol, which is produced when your body is under stress, can block the calcitriol receptor, and the absorption of vitamin D as a result. Therefore, if your training is causing you stress or anxiety, it may prevent you from efficiently absorbing this essential vitamin.
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Should I Take Supplements
You may already be taken them, in a way. Many products are “fortified” with additional vitamins, and this is the case in many countries for B12.
In the United States, Canada and Western Europe, most flour is fortified, for example. However, there are some notable exceptions. In many of the Nordic countries, fortification is restricted or simply banned altogether.
Therefore, it is likely that your diet provides all the B12 you need.
However, given it is safe to take additional B12 , you may want to try taking supplements to see if it improves your mood.
Other Reasons That Low Vitamin D And Anxiety Are Linked
The other reasons that low levels of vitamin D may relate to anxiety have nothing to do with the vitamin at all. Instead, they have to do with lifestyles. There is a considerable amount of evidence that those that don’t exercise are more likely to develop anxiety. A lot of exercise takes place outdoors, so those that aren’t exercising will also show low vitamin D levels. It’s not the vitamin D that’s causing it – rather, it’s the failure of the individual to adequately stay active.
Similarly, spending time with friends in a relaxing environment also affects anxiety. Many people with anxiety either don’t spend time with their friends or stay indoors only and fail to get many new experiences. This may also contribute to both anxiety and vitamin d deficiency independently.
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