Vitamin D Can Help You Lose Weight
We’ve reported on many different ways that having low levels of vitamin D can adversely affect your health. Here’s a new study that suggests that being vitamin D deficient can make it harder to lose weight when you attempt to change your diet and eat fewer calories.
Obesity is known to contribute to lower blood vitamin D levels. (The vitamin D gets sequestered, or stuck, in the fat under the skin.) What is not clear is if vitamin D deficiency contributes to obesity. What was clear — and intriguing — from this University of Minnesota study was that people who had higher blood levels of vitamin D at the beginning of an 11-week diet plan lost more weight than those with low levels of vitamin D.
In fact, although most participants were low in vitamin D, for every increase in 1 ng/mL of 25-hydroxcholecalciferol (a precursor form of vitamin D) people lost close to a half pound more weight while on the diet. And if they had a higher baseline of vitamin D to begin with, they lost more abdominal fat.
The Anti-Aging Bottom Line: Though the study authors agree that more research is needed, there are so many other reasons to supplement with vitamin D that weight loss could be simply an added bonus. If you’re planning to start a new lifestyle of healthy eating and exercise to lose weight, make sure you’ve got vitamin D to help make the most of your efforts.
