Are You Getting Enough?
Vitamin D that is…
– Want to decrease your risk of serious infection or death from covid?
– Want to increase your sex hormone levels and support bone health at midlife? – Want to lower your risk of anxiety and depression?
Read on…
Technically vitamin D is not a vitamin, but a steroid hormone that we synthesise from sunlight. What that means is that if we live in the far Northern hemisphere and/or spend a lot of time indoors we’re likely to be deficient.
That matters because vitamin D plays a role in supporting our immune system, our hormones, bone density and may even help with metabolic syndrome in post-menopausal women.
New peer reviewed research from Israel has shown a strong link between vitamin D deficiency and serious illness or death among covid patients (link to Times of Israel in comments).
“Israel scientists say they have gathered the most convincing evidence to date that increased vitamin D levels can help COVID-19 patients reduce the risk of serious illness or death.”
“Researchers from Bar Ilan University and the Galilee Medical Center say that the vitamin has such a strong impact on disease severity that they can predict how people would fare if infected based on nothing more than their ages and vitamin D levels.”
The two year study found that patients deficient in vitamin D were 14 times more likely to end up in a severe or critical condition.
The researchers concluded that, “studies pointing to the importance of taking vitamin D are very reliable, and aren’t based on skewed data… it emphasizes the value of everyone taking a vitamin D supplement during the pandemic, which, consumed in sensible amounts in accordance with official advice, doesn’t have any downside.”
We were saying this back in April 2020, and as a midlifer it’s great to be supplementing with vitamin D because as well as supporting your immune system it also supports your primary sex hormones (oestrogen for women, testosterone for men), supports bone health, and has been shown to reduce levels of anxiety and depression.
Taking vitamin K with vitamin D aids absorption and also aids bone health, and so is particularly good for midlife women.
So, are you getting enough?