Vitamin D has gotten a lot of attention in the past few years. It seemingly has been the ‘cauliflower’ of the vitamin world being involved with almost everything. You have cauliflower rice, pizza, pretzels and everything else. Vitamin D is showing to have some impact on immune system, respiratory system, bone health, strength and much more. Latest research dives into the potential impact on physical performance and testosterone levels.
What is vitamin D and optimal levels
As mentioned vitamin D is involved in a wide variety of functions we continue to learn more about. It is involved with calcium absorption for optimal bone health but that is the tip of the iceberg. Vitamin D receptors have begun to be found on muscle and now the trending question is what does that mean? This is where the currently study is looking at correlations between vitamin D levels and impact on performance and testosterone.
The first question though is what is an optimal vitamin D level when getting a blood test? Sufficient levels are deemed to have a cutoff at ~30ng/ml. Situations that can increase the risk of being insufficient include if living in less sunny areas and/or spending increased time indoors also limiting that sun exposure. Indoor athletes such as basketball players and gymnasts tend to be at a greater risk of deficiency due to this. Those individuals need to be more mindful of consuming the proper food/supplements to keep those levels elevated.
Sources of vitamin D
The main natural sources of vitamin D comes from are fatty fish, egg yolks and sunshine. Unfortunately, many people don’t acquire enough of those foods or get enough sunshine. Especially depending on where you live it can impact access to that sun exposure, increasing the risk of deficiency. As a result, most of us tend to need to utilize a supplement to make up the difference. Vitamins fall into two categories of water-soluble and fat-soluble. This indicates the vitamin needing water or fat to be absorbed respectively. Vitamin D falls into that fat soluble category which means it should be consumed with a meal for optimal absorption.
Study findings
Having more data is never a bad thing and that is exactly what this study provides. While there isn’t any major discovery, we at least have a bigger sample size to pull from. The participants in this study were elite track and field athletes both male and female around 18 years old. Correlations were looked at between vitamin D levels with 20-30 meter sprints, jump performance and testosterone levels.
Starting with the testosterone, this is a very early area of research with much more research needed and coming. This connection stems from vitamin D’s role in overall hormone production. Among these hormones, testosterone is included. There are a few studies that have found a correlation where improving vitamin D deficiency can help regain testosterone levels. Data shown in the referenced study does not appear to show a direct correlation though with higher vitamin D levels and higher testosterone levels.
Perhaps the performance tests will show some positive results! Unfortunately, this area also doesn’t have any major correlations found in males or females. Sprint speeds and strength of jumps were all fairly equal and seemingly not impacted by varying vitamin D levels. Improving performance in these areas still seems to be more dependent upon overall proper fueling and training. No super-secret ingredient in this one.
What to take away from this
While no specific correlations were found, there are a few things we can still take from this. The biggest thing from my perspective comes from the fact that on average most of the participants were already achieving sufficient levels of vitamin D. Many of the studies previously have shown that a lot of the benefits are noted when improving from insufficient levels. So, this helps to at least reinforce what can occur with sufficient levels. But just because something is sufficient, doesn’t mean it is optimal. Average levels in the study were in the 30s ng/ml but optimal levels may actually be closer to 50. Perhaps increasing these participants levels a bit higher could have resulted in more notable effects.
Now for the action items! If you have never gotten your vitamin D levels checked, that is step one. If you don’t know where you’re starting from it’s tough to know where you need to go. After getting those levels though, if deficient I highly encourage working on getting those up right away. That can have significant benefits so don’t sleep on that. Upon receipt of the results and you find that you have sufficient but perhaps not quite optimal levels, focusing on some vitamin D rich foods and likely a supplement could be beneficial. Before just blindly taking a supplement though please make sure to check with someone first.
Study referenced: click here