A recent Japanese study found that Vitamin D can play a role in significantly reducing fat gain.
So, if you can’t train or are a little loose with your diet, Vitamin D can enable you to gain less fat than you would’ve done without it.
In the past, we’ve written about how keeping optimal Vitamin D levels can create the preconditions necessary to ameliorate fat loss, but the sun’s vitamin can also help keep you from putting on a few extra pounds when discipline is lacking.
We’ve also written about how Curcumin kills baby fat cells (pre-adipocytes) before they become full-fledged fat cells (adipocytes).
How Vitamin D Can Prevent Fat Gain
In a study of 47 participants — all athletes — 27 of the volunteers continued to supplement 1000IU of Vitamin D per day while ordered to consume a sumo wrestler’s diet and assume a slothful lifestyle for 3 months.
As it transpired, the participants who didn’t supplement Vitamin D gained an average of 1.9% body fat, but the athletes who continued supplementing Vitamin D only gained 0.2%.
Other studies have found that serum Vitamin D levels and bodyfat percentages are linked. Subjects with lower bodyfat percentages tended to exhibit higher levels of serum Vitamin D.
The tremendous difference between the two groups can’t be sniffed at, either.
But the study might need to be taken with a grain of salt as supplement consumption was self-reported.
Vitamin D is perhaps most appropriately classified as a steroid hormone rather than a vitamin. It is derived either through the action of ultraviolet light on the skin, which causes a particular form of cholesterol to convert into a form of vitamin D, or through dietary sources, including supplementation. Some of the best whole-food sources include fish (cod liver oil, salmon, mackerel, tuna and sardines) and milk.
Although the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, which generally used to be associated with rickets (a disease that causes softening of the bones), was reduced in the United States by programmes including milk fortification, physicians have noted an increase in deficiency in recent decades, including a return of rickets in children. In China, studies have led to estimates that around 40% of the population suffer from vitamin D deficiency in winter, and a similar percentage is suggested for the global population. [R]
And while vitamin D can be consumed through dietary sources, most experts agree that it is difficult to reach the recommended daily amounts through diet alone. As a result, exposure to sunlight or supplementation is necessary to consume enough.
With regard to sunlight exposure, the time of year, time of day, geographic latitude, cloud cover, pollution, skin melanin content (i.e. skin darkness), and sunscreen use all affect UV radiation exposure and vitamin D synthesis. For many, as a result, it will be necessary to supplement with vitamin D to ensure recommended daily amounts are met.
This wonderful supplement — considering you might live somewhere cloudy — can also reduce the risk of depression, covid hospitalization, boost testosterone levels, and give your immune system a much-needed shot in the arm in addition to the great host of benefits it offers.
Now, the best way to ensure optimal levels is to go outside and get some sun — mainlining it from the source.
However, be sure to check the ingredients of your supplement provider as it can be suspended in soybean oil.
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