Even if you’re not a vampire, you could be low on vitamin D!

It’s true that with enough sunlight, you can produce all the vitamin D you need.

So by that logic, as long you’re not a vampire, a vitamin D deficiency should be the least of your concerns.

However, the amount of sunlight you get on your skin is just one of the factors that has an impact on your vitamin D levels. And while some factors are in your control, others are out of it entirely!

Firstly, what factors are are in your control?

1. Whether or not you’re a vampire

Whether or not you’re a vampire, or more specifically whether or not you get any sunlight, is vitally important to your vitamin D levels. That’s because sunlight is what enables your body to make vitamin D from its precursor. However, getting the right amount of sunlight can be a tough act to juggle. Firstly, there are so many factors effecting your UV exposure, ranging from your clothing choices and behaviour to your geographic location and time of year! Furthermore, when it comes to your health and UV exposure, there’s more than just vitamin D to consider as too much exposure can increase your risk of skin cancer and accelerate ageing!

2. Diet!

I’m most likely a little (or a lot) biased towards this factor as my main interest is in nutrition, but your diet can most certainly have an impact on your vitamin D levels. If you took the diet approach, you could treat vitamin D like any other vitamin and simply ensure that you’re hitting the recommended daily intake through what you eat and drink. This is certainly possible, particularly if you include fortified foods and/or supplements. Furthermore, this wouldn’t come with the potential downsides of increased skin cancer risk and accelerated ageing, which are associated with more exposure to sunlight.

Now that sounds like a great way to ensure you’re getting enough vitamin D, but simply using your diet is not without its own drawbacks. I would say the main downside would be the monetary cost, espicially compared to the low cost of simply going outside! That’s because vitamin D is not naturally found in a lot of foods and even in the foods its found, there’s generally not enough of it to meet your body’s needs. That means you’d have to eat a highly selective (and potentially expensive) whole foods diet or depend on fortified foods and/or supplements, which may be problematic when it comes to cost.

Alright, what are the factors out of your control?

3. Genetics

Genetics seems to be the answer to everything health wise these days, so it really should be no surprise that it shows up here!

The more obvious impact comes from your skin tone. The darker your skin tone, the more melanin pigments you have. These melanin pigments work by absorbing UV radiation. Now that’s a good thing when it comes to protecting your body from the potential harmful effects of excess sun exposure, but it also means there’s less UV available for the body to produce vitamin D. Thus people with darker skin tones may need more sun exposure to produce the same amount of vitamin D as someone with fairer skin.

Furthermore, there’s genetic variation in how much vitamin D precursor is available to make vitamin D. The DHCR7 gene converts the vitamin D precursor into cholesterol and not vitamin D, so variants of the DHCR7 gene with lower activity means there’s more precursor available to make vitamin D.

4. Father time remains undefeated

Father time remains undefeated and it’s no different when it comes your body’s ability to produce vitamin D. And just to rub salt in the wounds, the impact of ageing is twofold! Not only does does getting older mean your body doesn’t produce as much vitamin D in your skin, but decreased kidney function also reduces your body’s ability to convert vitamin D into its biologically active form! So as you age, you make less vitamin D and that which you do make is less useful than it once was! Maybe being a vampire (and all its anti-ageing benefits) has been the real key to reaching your vitamin D goals all along …