Could Low Vitamin D Be Behind Your Weight Gain? Causes Of Vitamin D Deficiency

Have you found yourself on the bathroom scale wondering about the dynamics of your body? You haven’t taken to consuming a load of food or decided to adopt an indiscriminate diet. You may even be on a mission to eat healthy.

Perhaps you’ve taken up walking, making home meals, increasing your water intake and being more cautious when snacking. But even so, your weight seems to be bucking the trend, or stubbornly remaining the same.

Somewhere between a late-night foray into Google and a scroll through social media, the phrase appears before you: “Vitamin D deficiency is linked to weight gain.”

This seems too good to be true.

Can one little vitamin explain everything? Despite what the headlines suggest, the story of vitamin D deficiency and weight gain is more complex than you might think. While studies have established a link between vitamin D deficiency and obesity, 1 proving a direct causal relationship between the two is a different matter altogether.

Moreover, the relationship could be reverse: weight gain could cause vitamin D deficiency just as readily. Other factors like age, lifestyle, and metabolic and biological variations will also have their effect.

This doesn’t mean you need to search for any “hormonal balancing” product and take vitamin D pills indefinitely, nor does it mean blaming any bodily changes solely on one nutrient.

This whole thing is about curiosity. Nutritional interventions should not be painful. You are not a computer which takes less energy and more movement to run. The condition of your nutrition, sleep, exercise, sun exposure, diet, stress, medication, hormones, and overall health might matter a lot.

Let’s discuss all of these points in detail to clear out the confusion!

Vitamin D Deficiency and Weight Gain: What’s the Connection?

There is indeed a link between vitamin D and weight, but not every correlation indicates that one of the two causes the other. Many studies have demonstrated that those who are overweight or suffering from obesity generally have lower vitamin D levels.

Solid proof that vitamin D deficiency can lead to obesity appeared in one of the systematic reviews of cohort studies, but the evidence generated herein wasn’t completely absolute.

Further systematic reviews have produced evidence showing that there are lower levels of vitamin D among those who have higher body weight. 2 While there exist a variety of observations, they don’t imply that vitamin D deficiency must have caused a weight increase.

Put it this way:

If two women enter a café on a rainy day with umbrellas, does it mean that umbrellas caused the rain?

The same is true about vitamin D deficiency and excessive weight – they may coincide without one being a cause for another. Researchers have suggested that obesity may influence vitamin D accumulation and use in the body, as vitamin D is fat soluble and may either deposit itself in fat.

Does Consuming Vitamin D Help You Lose Weight?

Discussions about vitamin D deficiency can often be seen as troublesome. Although it is acknowledged that treating vitamin D deficiency is important, vitamin D is not a successful method for weight loss. Multiple clinical trials and evidence show that consuming vitamin D doesn't promote weight loss.

The systematic review that looked into randomized controlled trials concludes that vitamin D consumption has no effect on BMI, weight, or fat mass. A recent meta-analysis also demonstrated that no matter the amount of vitamin D consumed, the resulting weight loss, BMI, or waist size was not different when using a placebo.

This means that those who rely on vitamin D for weight loss should abandon this understanding. However, vitamin D is still important. Vitamin D plays a significant role in calcium absorption, bone health and muscle strength among other processes in our bodies.

People who are 70 years old or younger need 600 IU (15 mcg) of Vitamin D daily, whereas those who are older should take 800 IU per day. The goal isn't to turn vitamin D into a fat-burning supplement. The goal is to avoid deficiency and support adequate nutrition.

7 Reasons Your Vitamin D May Be Low

If you have low vitamin D, don't immediately assume you aren't eating well.

There can be multiple other reasons.

1. You're getting very little sunlight

Our skin is able to produce vitamin D when exposed to UVB rays. 3 The production of vitamin D differs based on different factors, including your skin color, age, and location among others.

Modern living makes it very hard to access sunlight. For instance, check the following daily routine:

• At home, on the laptop.
• Drive to work in the car.
• Attend classes in university.
• Go to bed.
• And so on...

Living in a sunny country does not guarantee that you will get enough sunlight.

This is what makes “but you live in a sunny country” not credible argumentation.

2. Your diet contains very little vitamin D

There are almost no natural sources of foods that are rich in vitamin D. However, some sources of foods rich in vitamin D include fish, especially fatty fish such as salmon, trout, tuna, and mackerel. Other sources include egg yolk, beef liver, cheese, and mushrooms.

This aspect makes nutrition far more interesting than just acquiring a vitamin pill.

Again, instead of thinking,

“What vitamin D supplement should I buy?”

The question can be replaced with:

“What are the foods containing vitamin D, and how to use this vitamin in the daily meals?”

• Consider grilled fish with rice and vegetables.
• Eggs with whole-grain toast.
• Fortified milk or yogurt if responsible.

It will lead to having a regular breakfast instead of having a perfect one. Thus, little nutrition upgrades tend to be more sustainable than starting whole new diet. Vitamin D deficiency and weight gain can be managed through this way.

3. Higher body fat

This is one of the most fascinating pieces of the paddle. Studies show that those who suffer from obesity tend to have lower levels of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

The proposed reasons for that trend include the storage in adipose tissue, volume dilution, and the way in which sunlight is absorbed and how vitamin D is processed in different people’s bodies.

But that does not necessarily imply that:

“Fat is responsible for vitamin D deficiency.”

This statement is equally incorrect:

“Vitamin D deficiency is responsible for fat.”4

This relationship is more complex. You have a limited amount of food in your diet
Very restrictive diets might make you eat less in terms of nutrients.

Have you been eating something like:

Coffee — a very small breakfast — salad — “healthy” snack — a tiny dinner?

In this case, you may be consuming a lower quantity of food but not a higher quantity of nutrients. Eating a nourishing diet means not depriving yourself of any enjoyable food but rather having meals rich in proteins, fibers, carbohydrates, healthy fats, and micronutrients.

5. Certain medications or health conditions

It is worth noting that some medications also alter vitamin D levels or the absorption of the vitamin. To illustrate, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) explains that using some drugs, like orlistat, steroids, and various other medications, can affect your vitamin D levels.

Gastrointestinal diseases or disorders can also play a role in your nutrient absorption. 5 This is one of the reasons cause of persistent deficiency can be treated with more than just a high-dose vitamin supplement. If your vitamin D levels remain low after treatment, your healthcare provider may need to determine the reason.

6. You spend less time outdoors

It could initiate a rather mild cycle.

• You are fatigued.
• You are less active.
• You spend more time at home.
• You are deprived of sunlight.
• Your diet may become more based on convenience.

• Your sleep cycle changes.
• Your activity decreases even further.

And sometimes improving one small part of the routine makes another part easier. Vitamin D deficiency and weight gain can be managed by making these changes.

7. You may simply need your status checked

Symptoms alone cannot reliably tell you whether you're vitamin D deficient. If deficiency is suspected because of your history, risk factors or symptoms a healthcare professional can decide whether testing is appropriate.

The blood test used to assess vitamin D status is serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D]. That's more useful, than guessing based on tiredness, weight gain, cravings or only social-media symptom lists.

Read my below article to know Vitamin D deficiencies symptoms and things to know before taking it!

Ways to Support Healthy Vitamin D Status

1. Add a vitamin-D-containing food to a meal you already eat

2. Don't fear dietary fat, they are important for vitamin D absorption.

3. Build meals instead of collecting “superfoods”

4. Make outdoor movement part of your routine

5. If you're deficient, treat the deficiency—not the number on the scale

What About Vitamin D Supplements for Weight Loss?

That's the point when marketers can overshadow scientists. Products are promoted using such terms as:

• Fat-burning products
• Metabolic boosters
• Hormone adjusting substances
• Weight loss vitamins
• Belly fat solutions

But this is not an easy task because just by supplementing your body with vitamin D doesn’t make you lose weight. So what’s behind all these? Well, there might be several reasons for both vitamin D deficiencies and obesity which we will discuss shortly below.

If you think that you may fall into either category, don’t expect miracles by just taking some supplements of vitamin D. Eat healthy food and build up good habits around your lifestyle to get rid of obesity.

Moreover, too much vitamin D is harmful. In general, the acceptable upper limit is 4,000 IU (100 mcg), except for cases when a physician prescribes large doses of it.

Excessive intake of vitamin D leads to excessive calcium levels and serious complications like getting kidney stones, kidney injury, and problems with heart rhythm. So do not conclude from low vitamin D that if 2,000 IU is normal, then 10,000 IU must be better. 6

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