Vitamin D and weight loss:
There are is a new study that had 400 people doing a low calorie diet. Besides the control group, two other group was taking Vitamin D supplements at 25,000 or 100,000 IU per month.
At the end of the trial, it was found that both groups having the Vitamin D supplements had a significant weight reduction as compared to the control group.
See this report.
Vitamin D levels are usually not high in obese people. This is because it is a fat soluble substance. It has a tendency to be stored in the fatty tissue rather than floating around in the blood stream. This creates a deficiency in the blood levels. As a prohormone, it activates many other hormones like insulin and adrenaline which in turn affects how much storage of glucose (as fat in the body) and metabolic rate of a person.
By raising this vitamin in the blood level, it allows for greater activation of other hormones which in turn is better for the body.
Generally, most people these days do not have enough vitamin D. This is partially, we no longer work in the sun and with the general skin cancer scare, most of us are covering up with sun block on a daily basis. This reduces the ability for the skin to produce vitamin D from cholesterol via the sunlight it receives.
Even in Singapore, I’ve talked to some doctors and they have discovered that even in this tropical island country, there is a wide spread vitamin D deficiency. Most of them did not believe this was possible until a wider testing was done.
Supplementation is one way to increase vitamin D. The other is to eat more Vitamin D rich foods like fish, eggs, milk, yogurt, cereal and juices. Targeting 2000IU a day would be a good start.