Vitamin D Deficiency Symptoms

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Vitamin D is very important for the body and as everyone knows a deficiency of vitamin D can lead to a number of problems with the skeletal system. This is because although vitamin D has nothing to do with the bones, the body is able to absorb both calcium and phosphorous, which are essential to have strong bones, only in the presence of this vital nutrient.

There are two ways in which the body gets its requirement of vitamin D every day. One is from the food we eat and there are a number of very good vitamin D food that are rich in vitamin D. Most sea foods are very good sources of vitamin D, as are fish oils. Meat products and eggs too are good sources of the vitamin although not as good as sea food.

Most vegetables have very low quantities of vitamin D, although mushrooms and yeast, when irradiated with UV light tend to produce quite large quantities of the vitamin.

The other is from exposure to sunlight, or to be specific, to UV light. Some people believe that just 10 to 20 minutes of exposure every day is sufficient to ward off any deficiency although you may need a couple of hours of exposure if you want your daily dose entirely from sunlight. 7-dehydrocholesterol, normally present in the skin and which is a derivative from cholesterol gets converted to vitamin D in the skin when exposed to sunlight.

What is the minimum Vitamin D levels that we have to maintain in our bodies.

Vitamin D, like most vitamins is essential for a number of reasons. The problem with this is that because the body can synthesize the vitamin itself, it is difficult to recommend a minimum dose from the diet alone. The recommended maximum daily dose is around 4000 IU although it is believed that the body is able to store excess vitamin D to be used when deficient.

For most normal healthy adults around 500 IU of vitamin D a day from the diet is recommended. This is easily achieved if a little seafood is included in the diet, especially the fatty fish varieties like catfish, mackerel, sardines, tuna etc. The remaining quantity is made up by the body itself by synthesis.

What are the problems with deficiency

There are three main problems that deficiency of vitamin D gives, rickets in small children and osteomalasia and osteoporosis in older people.

Rickets

Rickets has been almost completely wiped out in the developed world although it is still quite prevalent in the developing and under developed world. Although rickets can be caused due to other reasons like poor nutrition and genetic factors, most of the time it is due to the deficiency of vitamin D. In parts of Africa where rickets is very common, it is more to do with a lack of calcium in the diet than in a deficiency of vitamin D.

Rickets results in soft bones everywhere in the body including in the skull. There are generally no other signs although a swelling of the wrists is very typical of the first stages of rickets. Most often the disease is diagnosed only when the bones of the legs get bowed because the skeletal system is not strong enough to take the weight of the body.

Although the disease as such is reversible by removing the deficiency, the effects cannot be set right. The person will therefore continue to have bowed legs throughout his or her life.

In slightly older children the tendency is reversed in the sense that instead of the legs getting bowed, they get knock knees.

Osteoporosis

This disease is very commonly known, especially with middle aged and older people, especially women. The general belief is that the onset of osteoporosis is due to a lack of nutrition and although this is a cause too, most often it is due to a lack of vitamin D.

Middle aged and elderly people generally don’t go out in the sun as much as their younger counterparts. Also this is the time when many of them also suffer from weight problems and so will be trying to cut down on their food intake. This results in a two fold deficiency in vitamin D. The body doesn’t get enough from the diet and it is not able to synthesize what it needs too.

Another problem is that the body needs cholesterol to synthesize 7-dehydrocholesterol, which is the precursor to vitamin D. If you aren’t eating enough fat, your body will not have enough 7-dehydrocholesterol to synthesize vitamin D, even if you stand out in the sun the whole day.

This is why older people tend to get osteoporosis which is basically the bones getting very porous. This results in them weakening and becoming very prone to breakage.

Once again there are no symptoms to osteoporosis, until you find that your bones are breaking very easily.

Osteomalasia

Osteomalasia once again is very similar to osteoporosis in that it affects only older people, but differently. Instead of the bones getting brittle, it softens. Also it is characterized by pain in the muscles that adjoin the bones whenever you do any activity. The pain is not there all the time, only when you exert yourself.

The only symptom for osteomalasia is chronic fatigue. The problem is that fatigue can be caused due to any reason, and osteomalasia is not the first thing that is diagnosed.

In all three diseases there are no symptoms that will indicate anything. However dangerous this may seem, it is good to remember that if you are eating well, just 10 or 20 minutes of time in the sun is sometimes enough to prevent any deficiency. A couple of hours and you don’t have to worry about anything.

Jenny Allan is the webmaster at NutritionUncovered.com where she provides practical nutrition and supplement tips and advice. If you enjoyed this article you can get FREE updates by RSS.