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Nutrition Vitamin D and strength

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tjozsef

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This is my first thread, so I thought better to pick an interesting topic that maybe can help other people to achieve higher strength levels, and better health.


I can speak from my own experience, vitamin D (together with other natural things) saved me from antidepressants, and cured my anxiety.

Other positive effect was my strength also improved after I started taking 10000-5000 NE vitamin D3 while I take also calcium, magnesium (magnesium very important while you take vitamin D, because your body need magnesium to activate vit D, I take magnesium-citrate in powder form), and K2 vitamin (important to prevent too high calcium levels in blood), and flexibility became better too.
Do not take calcium, and magnesium with the same "meal", cause that can decrase the absorption of magnesium.

I guess I had vitamin d deficiency, but I can not prove that with test yet, in next weeks I plan to take a blood test to find out how much my levels at the moment after taking 10000 NE daily dose, will share the results here.

I found a study related to the topic, proving the relation between vitamin D level and strength.


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The elder people partipicating in this study were set in two groups, one group only got calcium+placebo tabs, other group calcium+vitamin D for 6 months.

The result was the following:


"Due to seasonal variations, serum 25(OH)D significantly enhanced in both groups after treatment, but the calcium/vitamin D group had significantly higher 25-(OH)D levels than the calcium/placebo group (84 vs. 33%,respectively; p!0.0001). No cases of hypercalcemia wereobserved. While the calcium/placebo group showed no im-provement in SHF and SKE at 6 months (p = 0.93 and p = 0.61, respectively), SHF was increased in the calcium/vitamin D group by 16.4% (p = 0.0001) and SKE by 24.6% (p = 0.0007).
Conclusions:
The suggested cholecalciferol supplementa-tion was safe and efficient in enhancing 25(OH)D levels and lower limb muscle strength in the elderly, in the absence of
any regular physical exercise practice."


(cholecalciferol = vitamin D3)

Source:

Linda D.F. Moreira-Pfrime, Márcia A.C. Pedrosa, Luzimar Teixeira, Marise Lazaretti Castro:
Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency Increases Lower Limb Muscle Streng
th in Institutionalized Older People Independently of Regular Physical Activity: A Randomized Double-Blind Controlled Trial
 
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Interesting. I get a very unusual reaction from Vitamin D. After about 2-3 days on, my joints start hurting big time. I feel almost arthiritic.
 
Interesting. I get a very unusual reaction from Vitamin D. After about 2-3 days on, my joints start hurting big time. I feel almost arthiritic.
I will dig up internet later for similar cases, but so far I have two ideas that may help.


1. Which form you were taking vitamin D? D3, or D2? In tabs or in oil drops?


Once I was taking many type of vit tabs, and they all have unwanted materials to help production of the tabs. Even they say these 100% safe, but for my own experience they can cause problems in your digestion if you take many together, and you can get guts inflammation. When that happened I felt joint pain too and general weakness.


This is why I take vitamin D, and K in oil drop form, those only have oil, vitamin E(tokoferol, probably in alfa type but if you take other type of the vitamin E too then that can not be problem. If someone only take alfa type that can cause increased cancer risk, so the key is to always take balanced, mixed type E vitamin complex, or drink raw pumpkin oil etc.)

btw probably the oil form cheaper too.

2. Do you take magnesium, while you take vitamin D?

Your body use magnesium to change the vitamin D to an active, hormonform, so if your body do not got enough magnesium then you can get those symptons you wrote while you take vitamin D. So the problem not with vitamin D, but if you got magnesium deficiency too.

(I updated my post with that.)

I take magnesium citrate powder in smaller parts while the day, so I do not have to visit the toilet too often.
Its cheaper and maybe cleaner than taking magnesium in tab form.
 
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I take D3, a pretty solid brand. I've been avoiding the D for a while now because it made me feel like crap, contrary to what it's pushed at. But when I did take it, I didn't take it with magnesium,no.

Is there some sort of ratio when taking D and Mag together? What's the right amount?
 
I take D3, a pretty solid brand. I've been avoiding the D for a while now because it made me feel like crap, contrary to what it's pushed at. But when I did take it, I didn't take it with magnesium,no.

Is there some sort of ratio when taking D and Mag together? What's the right amount?


First of all, it is hard to overdose magnesium if your kidneys are healthy, no need to worry about that, so a little more than needed can not hurt you. You will be locked in toilet sooner, and you will not be able to overdose magnesium.



How much magnesium/day?


In a Hungarian book, called Vitamin Forradalom found guideline saying " 10-15 milligrams of magnesium / bodyweight kgs". So if you are 85 kgs, then your elemental magnesium intake should be around 85 x 15 = 1275 mg elemental magnesium from foods, water, and supplements altogether. This is a rough guide, cause highly depend on your lifestyle too.

But here are the problems:

1. You can not tell for sure how much magnesium you take with foods, because even same kind of vegetables can vary a lot if you check their minerals.

2. Can't be sure how much elemental magnesium your body can absorb from the magnesium supplements.


If I were you I would try different types of magnesium supplement, and choose that one your digestion system can tolerate best, and affordable in longterm too. I tried first some kind of magnesium-oxid tabs, but they did not work for me, because my guts did not like them, then I tried magnesium-citrate and that looks ok so far. But as I said that depend on your body which type supplement will be best for you.


About magnesium-citrate powder:

Study about mg-citrate:


Mg citrate found more bioavailable than other Mg preparations in a randomised, double-blind
study.

Walker AF, Marakis G, Christie S and Byng M

-Got around 14% elemental magnesium, so 1000 mg mg-citrate contain 140 mg elemental magnesium.

-Absorbation is person dependant, but you can read result about 30-50%, so if you take 3000 mg magnesiaum citrate daily then in best case you receive 3000 x 0.14 x 0.5 = 210 mg elemental magnesium for your body. I know that not sound much, but even little can make difference, especially if you got deficiency. Your goal should be have a healthy diet with many green vegetables, as they good source of magnesium, and only supplement extra magnisum as much your digestion system does not mind.


If I were you...


-Would buy some magnesium-citrate powder, and test that. Do not buy much at first, maybe magnesium-citrate not the best for you.

-Take magnesium-citrate after meals in smaller dosages in late afternoon/night. Altogether 3 grams mg-citrate/daily dose I think a good start. Btw you can try take on empty stomach too, but I found for me better to take after meal.

-Do not take calcium supplement together with magnesium same time, cause that can decrase the magnesium absorbation.

-Listen to your body, watch how you body react. If you feel yourself better, good mood, stronger, more relaxed etc. then we can guess you maybe got magnesium deficiency. You can increase the daily magnesium intake some if you want, until you do not end up visiting toilet too often.

-Supplement magnesium for 5-7 days If things go well, then you can try add 6000 vitamin D3 too in the mornings meanwhile you still take magnesium in later afternoon/night.

Hopefully you will not notice more joint pain while taking vitamin D3!


Promising alternative:


Let's say you found out you got magnesium deficieny, and you want to build up your magnesium storage faster, then probably magnesium spray on skin can be good solution for you, meanwhile you still take extra magnesium with meals.

Study about magnesium spray:


A pilot study to determine theimpact of transdermalmagnesium treatment onserum levels and whole body CaMg ratios

Watkins K*, Josling PD**
 
I read to take your vitamin d in the morning as it might disrupt your sleep if taken later in the day.
 
Thanks for the info. I have to admit I'm very leery of megadosing one or two vitamins to the exclusion of others these days. It seems like every few years there's a new miracle vitamin or mineral, and then that info changes again as time goes by. I'm starting to feel like we really know very little about the big picture, and that these things should be taken in moderation and with balance. No one really knows what the long term effects are (over a significant period like 20-30 years+) of doing something like megadosing D or what have you. My subjective experience with all of this is I tend to feel worse or unusual when I focus or increase the intake of any one vitamin/mineral. And with the amount of marketing posing as research these days, it's making me even more skeptical. For example, the guys that push Ancient Minerals transdermal magnesium oil say it increases DHEA. I can not find a single study to back this up.

I do enjoy reading about them, and think they make for interesting discussion though.
 
FatCop, it's good sense in general to be leery of megadosing and latest crazes, but basic supplements of Vit D and magnesium are not in that category, imho. There's tons of research on Vit D, and both it and magnesium have been found to do much more in the metabolism than previously realized. Most full blood tests given as part of physicals now test Vit D levels- if not, you can find out easily whether your levels are good or not. Magnesium used to be plentiful in people's diets, and now it's not as abundant. Magnesium malate is a very absorbable form. Iodine is also something much scarcer in food today, away from the coasts, and may be worth supplementing if you don't eat iodized salt or seafood.
 
Get yourself a bag of Epsom salts, chuck them in a hot bath and have a relaxing soak. Apparently a good method of absorbing magnesium according to old wive's and in days gone by. I dunno, it's relaxing though especially with a glass of red.
 
@tjozsef, I just read the abstract of the first article - it says "in the absence of regular exercise." Does that still make it relevant to us here?

-S-
Sorry about slow answer, but I was busy with exams, and I think my hotmail ate the topic notification message.


Yes, in that study the elder people did not do any extra exercise, but I'm willing to say if both groups would be on same training, than the differences would be even bigger.

Vitamin D can make us stronger, and give us better general fitness in a direct, and in a indirect way. I mean under the direct way that your performance instantly increase if your vit D deficiency fixed, and I meant with indirect way you will catch cold, and other illnes less often if your vitamin D level is good, and of course less injuries . And that gives you more steady progress.


I found this in a review written by the results of other studies from 1930 until 2012:


"Results:
There is strong correlation between vitamin D sufficiency and optimal muscle function. Increasing levels of vitamin D reduce inflammation, pain, and myopathy while increasing muscle protein synthesis, ATP concentration, strength, jump height, jump velocity, jump power, exercise capacity, and physical performance. 25(OH)D levels above 40 ng/mL are required for fracture prevention, including stress fractures. Optimal musculoskeletal benefits occur at 25(OH)D levels above the current definition of sufficiency (> 30 ng/mL) with no reported sports health benefits above 50 ng/mL.

Conclusions:
Vitamin D deficiency is common in athletes. For athletes presenting with stress fractures, musculoskeletal pain, and frequent illness, one should have a heightened awareness of the additional likely diagnosis of vitamin D deficiency. Correction of this deficiency is completed by standardized and supervised oral supplementation protocols producing significant musculoskeletal sports health benefits."



Source:

Franklin D. Shuler, MD, PhD,* Matthew K. Wingate, MD, G. Hunter Moore, BS, and Charles Giangarra, MD:
Sports Health Benefits of Vitamin D
 
@tjozsef, if you can give me a link to an online source of Vitamin D supplement, I'm willing to try taking it and seeing if it makes any difference. The last time I had my levels checked, I remember the number being around 35. I'm due for another physical - will have it in the next few months - and will see what it says after taking Vit D for a while.

-S-
 
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