From boosting immune function to enhancing brain function, vitamin D offers numerous benefits. You can get vitamin D from the sunlight on your skin, a supplement, and from a few foods like fatty fish, mushrooms, and eggs.
Low levels of this natural sunshine vitamin can lead to a heightened risk of conditions like diabetes, autoimmune disorders, heart disease, poor oral health, delayed wound healing, and depression. There’s a lot that one vitamin can do, but what about your running performance? Does having low levels of vitamin D hold you back on the running track?
How low vitamin D levels can hold you back
Study authors noted that low vitamin D levels can:
- Negatively impact muscle strength, power, and endurance.
- Increase the risk of stress fractures and other musculoskeletal injuries.
- Affect acute muscle injuries and inflammation after high-intensity exercises.
The researchers detail the evidence for vitamin D relevancy in athletes.
What does the research show?
Researchers have found that endurance athletes are more likely to have a vitamin D deficiency because they use up their nutrient stores faster than non-athletes. The researchers reported a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among athletes (56%), and they also emphasized the importance of vitamin D in sports medicine, as well as the benefits of supplementation. This percentage of people with a vitamin D deficiency compares to 24-40% in the general population.
This high prevalence of vitamin D deficiencies has even been shown in athletes who train outdoors and in latitudes that are favorable for sun exposure, suggesting that other factors are at play and contributing to “athletes’ unusual vulnerability to vitamin D deficiency”. The researchers point out how exercise mobilises vitamin D reserves.
Athletes vs. non-athletes
However, interestingly, another study showed that exercise could be protective for vitamin D levels, with levels dropping by 15% for the exercise group compared to 25% for the sedentary group who weren’t physically active. It’s important to note that this study involved overweight or obese adults who were sedentary but free from chronic disease. So, while more research is needed, it seems exercise could improve vitamin D levels for those who are sedentary; however, athletes tend to deplete those levels more quickly with higher intensity and endurance exercise.
Researchers have noted that “supplemental oral vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) may be tailored according to an athlete’s serum 25(OH)D basal levels” and that “prescriptions at doses higher than the official recommendations are acceptable from a safety perspective.” If you’re an athlete, it’s worth considering how low vitamin D levels can hinder your performance and whether you could use more exposure to sunlight, a more balanced diet rich in healthy foods like fatty fish, and/or supplementation.
