Vitamin D Supplementation

(Andy Hanson) #1

I’m starting on an EF and am wondering about Vitamin D. It’s fat-soluble, so does that mean my fat stores will provide my body with Vitamin D as I lose fat? Vitamin D is deficiency is linked to poor outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Just wondering if I should be concerned. Thanks in advance.

#2

Not sure I’d bank on that. I’ve no idea if fat loss releases stored Vitamin D but if you are overweight or obese there is a chance (though not a certainty) that you are low in Vitamin D. Depending on where you are in the world I’d at least try to get some UV every day.

(Andy Hanson) #3

Yeah, I’ve been supplementing Vitamin D for years. I walk everyday in Southern California, so I should be getting enough. Just not sure if I should continue to supplement while doing my extended fast (currently 41 hours in) because I don’t want to inhibit autophagy.

(charlie3) #4

I’m taking 50mcg of D3 daily at least until I’m out and about in summer clothing. I try to avoid suppliments and mostly succeed.

#5

If I had been supplementing for years, getting plenty of sun and eating a nutritious diet then unless I had a diagnosed deficiency I’d probably skip the supplements during a fast. If nothing else they’re probably a lot less effective if not taken with food. In an ideal world you’d get a blood test but we’re not currently living in an ideal world :slightly_smiling_face:

(KetoQ) #6

You need to take it with dietary fat.

(Michael Wallace Ellwood) #7

Interesting - I’ve just been reading the Jeff Bowles book on Vitamin D3 (and K2). I imagine it’s quite well-known, and certainly controversial, although I think he’s essentially correct in most of what he says.

Anyway, he quotes some respected researcher who says that overweight people have probably sequestered a lot of the Vitamin D they took or made from sunlight in their fat, and it’s not getting to the blood stream where it can be made use of. So very overweight people probably need more Vitamin D than normal weight people, rather than less.

The idea of the stored (in the fat cells) vitamin D becoming available had crossed my mind too, but as others have said, I don’t think it’s something that can be relied on. For example, the vitamin D in the fat cells may not be made available to the body in the normal way, but might get destroyed, as part of the autophagic process. Or it might end up getting eliminated in the urine, for example.

So if I were you, I’d work out how much Vitamin D I needed, and supplement accordingly (unless of course you can get it from sunlight or a sunlamp).

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #8

Vitamin D is manufactured from cholesterol (which is a precursor to many important hormones in the body), and a well-formulated ketogenic diet can be the source of a healthy amount of cholesterol in the system.

In the U.S., the government started requiring commercially-sold milk to be supplemented with vitamin D as the population moved generally from farming to factory work. I’m sure the growing use of industrial seed oils, which the government has also encouraged, hasn’t helped, however.

In any case, if there is a lot of vitamin D sequestered in fat cells, then it should become available once insulin drops and all that fat becomes free to leave the fat cells. We know that hormone levels can sometimes get wonky from the same cause. I wouldn’t particularly worry about what happens to vitamin D once it leaves the fat tissue, however. I doubt it would get broken down, unless the body suddenly found itself flooded with an excess. But my guess is that, while it is certainly possible for fat tissue to sequester vitamin D, I doubt most people on a high-carb diet were manufacturing all that much during the period when they were storing the most fat. Hence, the release on a ketogenic diet isn’t likely to be all that great. Or so would be my guess.

('Jackie P') #9

Personally, I think Vitamin D is the single most important factor in preventing a poor outcome from Covid 19, along with blood glucose of course.



('Jackie P') #10

It is odd how governments and the WHO are so lacking in interest in good science and research.

(Mame) #12

No need to guess if one should supplement Vit D, get it tested. It is usually a cheap test and most insurance plans covers it. I have finally had a normal Vit D test just this year! My first one back in 2008 was ‘ricket level’, LOL

(Bob M) #13

You can get drops that have both vitamin D and K2, which I think is a good option. I take vitamin D separately, but try to get K2 through other means.