Vitamin D

Cold and flu season. Yeah, it blows! Huge. It's even worse for competitive types like me and a lot of the readers of this blog. There are few things worse (aside from death of friends and family and other truly shitty things) than training your ass off for an event only to come down with some heinous virus a day or two before and either not compete or suck hugely attempting to do so.

I will admit to being a bit of a germaphobe when it comes to hygiene, especially around an upcoming competition. I just get paranoid around big crowds of tightly-packed people, restaurants, public restrooms, all the places where I can be exposed to larger concentrations of the virus du jour. I use a lot of hand sanitizer and wash my hands frequently. And you know what? It pays off. I have not had a cold for 2 years now. And that is saying something for someone who works in health care and spends a lot of time at a hospital.

But as important as I think hand cleansing is and general awareness of potential exposure, there is something else that I feel is equally, if not more important. Vitamin D3 supplementation. Just like Vitamin C was all the rage in the 70's, Vitamin E in the 90's, Fish Oil in the early 2000's...Vitamin D will be the next big thing.

You don't have to probe very far on the internet to find a wealth of information about this critical nutrient. We call it a vitamin but it is actually a hormone and is manufactured by our own body like all other hormones. The big difference is that it requires an environmental stimulus to kick the production into gear - Sunlight. Now that society is completely paranoid about sun exposure we are not getting much of that. For those of us that live in colder Northern climates, we get even less for a large part of the year. A quick survey of individuals living in this part of the world would find most of us Vitamin D3 deficient.

I will make some general recommendations in this article about supplementation but if you want to really know your Vitamin D level then you must submit to the blood test. If you would rather not, you can safely jack up your daily intake without fear of overdosing or causing some sort of harm. The benefits of doing so are too numerous to list here but you can find all the convincing you need here. There is so much crazy stuff out there about this nutrient that it will boggle your mind. The beautiful thing is that it is cheap and easy to take.

As athletes, getting smart about Magnesium and it's relationship to Vitamin D3 metabolism is also important. There is a lot of new work going on looking at Magnesium's role in skeletal muscle function and it may directly impact performance. Well, upping Vitamin D3 puts a increased burden on our Magnesium stores as they work together as cofactors. The take home message here is that you should supplement both. For more information about it you can start here.

In addition to the immune function benefits of Vitamin D3, there is also a ton of evidence out there pertaining to athletic performance. As crazy as it sounds, the Eastern Block nations were on to this back in the 1960's and 70's when they were kicking our asses is everything. Sure, they were eating a lot of anabolic steroids but they were also using UVB light treatments and impacting sport performance. What?? That's right. Exposing athletes to ultra violet B rays improved performance. Nutty! Most researchers agree that it was not the light but rather the increased production of Vitamin D3 that result from the exposure. Here is a reference:

Gorkin Z, Gorkin MJ, Teslenko NE. [The effect of ultraviolet irradiation upon training for 100m sprint.]  The Journal of Physiology of the USSR [Fiziol, z. (RSSR)] 1938; 25: 695-701. (In Russian)

And another...

Allen R, Cureton T.  Effects of Ultraviolet Radiation on Physical Fitness.  Arch Phys Med 1945: 10: 641-44.

Below is a summary of an article on the subject of Vitamin D3 and performance. It sums up the points nicely:

"Five converging - but totally separate - lines of scientific evidence leave little doubt that vitamin D improves athletic performance.  (Actually left out a sixth line of evidence, something a little more complicated, studies of muscle strength and vitamin D receptor polymorphisms; the two studies I could find were both positive.) Anyway, the scientific evidence that UVB radiation, either from the sun or from sunbeds, will improve athletic performance is overwhelming and the mechanism is almost certainly vitamin D production. 

Peak athletic performance will probably occur with 25(OH)D levels of about 50 ng/ml, whether from sun, sunbeds, or supplements.  All that is missing is a big-time professional or college team identifying and then treating their elite athletes who are vitamin D deficient. Can you imagine what such performance-enhancing effects would do for basketball players, most of who are African American and who practice and play indoors all winter?  Or gymnasts?  Or weight lifters?  Can you imagine what it might do for those chronic neuromuscular injuries so common in sports medicine? 

However, a word of caution. The above studies suggest that taking too much vitamin D (more than 5,000 IU per day) may actually worsen athletic performance.  Take the right amount, not all you can swallow.  Take enough to keep your 25-hydroxy- vitamin D levels around 50 ng/ml, year round.  Easier yet, regularly use the sun in the summer and sunbeds in the winter - with care not to burn.  Once a week should be about right. 

When you think about it, none of this should surprise anyone. Every body- builder knows that steroid hormones can improve athletic performance, certainly increase muscle mass.  Barry Bonds knows they increase timing and power.  Activated vitamin D is as potent a steroid hormone as exists in the human body.  However, unlike other steroids, levels of activated vitamin D in muscle and nerve tissue are primarily regulated by sun exposure.  That's right, the rate-limiting step for the cellular function (autocrine) of activated vitamin D is under your control.  It depends on how much you put in your both or go into the sun. 

It's ironic that many athletes now avoid the sun, organized baseball is even promoting sun avoidance and sunblocks.  The ancient Greeks knew better; they had there elite athletes train on the beach and in the nude. The medical literature indicates vitamin D levels of about 50 ng/ml are associated with peak athletic performance.

Of course, recent studies show such levels are ideal for preventing cancer, diabetes, hypertension, influenza, multiple sclerosis, major depression, cognitive decline, etc.  But who cares about all that disease stuff old people get, we're talking about something really important: speed, balance, reaction time, muscle mass, muscle strength, squats, reps, etc.  And guess who's now taking 4,000 IU/day?  Yes he is, after six months his 25-hydroxy-vitamin D level is now 54 ng/ml, and he tells me his timing is better, he can jump a little higher, run a little faster, and the ball feels "sweeter," whatever that means." - John Cannell, M.D.

It's funny that this information is not more commonly known but the more I read the more I see the relationship between sun exposure, Vitamin D3 production/intake and general well-being. Some of the lack of awareness may be due to the fact that no one is going to get rich off this stuff. Vitamin D3 is cheap. There is little money to be made by big pharma with it. But I encourage all my readers to start using it 4,000-5,000 IU/day. Go get the blood test if you want to prove it to yourself. Test in March so you can measure the height of your deficiency. There is a reason why we don't get sick much in the summer and suffer far fewer upper respiratory infections and it has nothing to do with being cooped up indoors with other humans.

I know all the skin cancer alarmists are going to be up in arms about all this. The important point here is that although sunlight is a great way to quickly get your "fix", you can easily do it with supplements. So, all you pasty tan-a-phobes out there can just chill and take your pill. I'm not asking you to ruin your seamless Botox-enhanced complexion and start looking like an withering prune like me. Just make sure you get what you need. - Brian

Comments

[inquiring mind]

Is liquid better for absorption or does it matter?
jill

[brian]

Good question, Jill. I think there is quite a bit of discussion out there about the absorbability of supplements. I have heard some actually pass through our digestive tracks essentially untouched. Disappointing to say the least. Gel tab forms certainly break down readily and are probably fully absorbable. The capsule types with a powder inside are probably similar. The most suspect would be the hard, compact tablets. Liquid versions make sense although usually cost more and are less convenient.

Unfortunately, the industry is so poorly regulated that you are a bit at the whims of the producers. Some consumer groups have found wide variations in the content of supplements along with contaminants. Apparently, price is a poor indication. Do your research and choose wisely.

[Derek]

A discussion of D3 supplementation is not complete without discussing K2 and Vit A. All work synergistically together.