Assessment Of Depressive Symptoms
Depressive symptoms were measured by a short eight-item version of the validated Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. The CES-D scale is not a diagnostic instrument for clinical depression but can be used to identify people at risk of depression in population-based studies. This short version had good internal consistency at each wave and comparable psychometric properties to the full 20-item CES-D. Respondents were asked whether they had experienced any depressive symptoms, such as restless sleep or being unhappy in the week prior to interview. Respondents who reported four or more depressive symptoms in the week prior to the interview were classified as reporting elevated depressive symptoms,.
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Is Vitamin D Useful For Help With Anxiety And Depression
The use of vitamin D by doctors in the treatment of seasonal affective disorder is widespread. According to studies, the treatment may be as effective as light therapy. As a type of depression that is typically treated with light, light therapy has been used by the government in the 1980s. It is a common condition for people with seasonal affective disorder to lack vitamin D.
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Vitamin D deficiency has been associated with an increased risk of mental health problems as well as individual responses to stress . There are several risk factors related to vitamin D deficiency such as obesity, dark skin, living in countries with low sunlight incidence, gastrointestinal malabsorption, renal insufficiency, liver disease, and the use of covered clothing and sunscreen . Furthermore, reduced exposure to sunlight, thereby reducing the biosynthesis of vitamin D in the skin, is a strong factor in the pathophysiology of vitamin D deficiency and studies have been demonstrated that sun exposure can enhance vitamin D synthesis .
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Best Vitamins For Depression
B vitamins play an important role in helping the brain produce adequate levels of the chemicals required to manage mood and other functions, according to the Mayo Clinic. If someone has low levels of B-vitamins and in particular B-12, they may be more likely to experience symptoms of depression. B-vitamin deficiencies are often seen in people who have depression.
Even without a specific disorder, it can become increasingly difficult for a persons body to absorb enough vitamin B-12 as they age. Depression can often include symptoms of fatigue, and B-vitamins can help combat that. B-12, in particular, is known for being important to reduce fatigue.
Some of the foods that contain high levels of B-12 include fish, lean meats, eggs, poultry and milk. Certain breakfast cereals may be fortified with B-12 as well. B-12 supplementation can help if someone is a vegan or vegetarian or may not be getting enough of the vitamin for any reason.
Other B vitamins for depression, or vitamins that play a role in brain health include:
Does Vitamin D Make You Happy
If you increase your levels ofVitamin D, you will be in a better mood, feel more energetic, and be able to perform at your best. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is produced by the body in response to sunlight exposure. Its important to get enough of it in order to maintain healthy bones and teeth, as well as a healthy immune system.
In fact, vitamin D deficiency is the number one cause of osteoporosis in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , more than half of all Americans over the age of 50 are deficient in this essential vitamin.
The CDC also reports that the average adult needs about 1,000 international units per day to meet the recommended daily allowance of 25D, which is found in foods such as milk, eggs, meat, fish, shellfish, nuts and fortified cereals and other foods. If youre not getting enough, your body will begin to produce less of the vitamin, leading to a decrease in your ability to absorb it.
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Implications For Depression Treatment
When asked whether vitamin D supplementation could be used alongside other treatments for depression or as an alternative, Dr. Aucoin noted that it is hard to draw any conclusions due to a lack of current research available.
She added, however, that there are no concerns about providing a vitamin D supplement to a person who is also receiving other treatments for depression.
In this new meta-analysis, I was surprised to see a smaller antidepressant effect from vitamin D supplementation in studies where participants were also taking antidepressants. However, as the authors suggest, this is likely due to other characteristics of the participants in those studies.
What Foods Have Vitamin D
Even if Vitamin D won’t fix your depression on its own, it’s still important to incorporate more Vitamin D into your diet if you have a deficiency.
Vitamin D is found in few foods naturally, and in relatively small amounts. The best sources include:
- Salmon and other fatty fish
Some foods are also fortified with vitamin D, meaning that more is added in. These commonly include:
- Breakfast cereals
Moreover, if you’re interested in taking a vitamin D supplement, your doctor can check your vitamin D levels and determine the proper dose you may need.
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Should You Take A Vitamin D Supplement
The ODS recommends that adults age 19 to 70 get 15 micrograms daily. But before you take anything, be sure to speak with your doctor.
I like for people to get a blood test to see where they are before making a recommendation about supplementation, notes Moore. If you do need extra vitamin D, either D2 or D3 will work, and you may need 1,500 to 2,000 IU daily. In cases of extreme deficiency, your doctor may give you a vitamin D injection of 50,000 IU once a week for eight weeks to bring your levels up.
Start by getting more D from sunlight and fortified foods, such as milk alternatives and cereals, if you can. In order for vitamin D to be well absorbed, it needs to be taken with a source of fat, Moore notes.
When it comes to increasing your time in the sun, the ODS says theres no clear answer about how to balance exposure with cancer risk but points out that most people dont need much sunlight exposure to make enough vitamin D. And while sunscreen is essential in helping prevent skin cancer, keep in mind that it also blocks some of the suns UVB rays, which your body needs to make vitamin D.
Evidence For The Association Between Vitamin D And Depression
Several cross-sectional studies, few cohort studies, and one case-control study have examined the association. All the studies found that depressed subjects had lower levels of vitamin D compared to controls, and those with the lowest vitamin D levels had the greatest risk of depression . These values, though statistically significant, do not establish clinical relevance beyond doubt.
While both hospital-based and community-based trials show a link between low vitamin D levels and presence and severity of depressive symptoms, it is important to examine if these associations hold good after controlling for relevant demographic, lifestyle, and geographical factors. Encouragingly, community-based trials that controlled for age, gender, smoking, and body mass index have also found an inverse correlation between serum levels of 25D and levels of depression.
These findings are partly tempered by the conclusions from two negative studies among the elderly one a large Chinese epidemiologic study of men and women aged 5070 years that did not show any association between vitamin D and depression and the other, a cohort study from Hong Kong , where no relationship was observed between baseline vitamin D level and depression status at four-year follow-up. Notably, both these studies showed that the odds ratios turned insignificant after adjusting for several key confounders.
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Vitamin D Can Help You Lose Weight
Dr. Boyd points out that obesity is a known risk factor for low vitamin D levelswhich means more vitamin D may help with weight loss. One 2009 study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that, in overweight or obese women with low calcium levels, those who took a daily dose of calcium paired with vitamin D were more successful shedding pounds than those who took a placebo supplement, due to an appetite-suppressing effect of the combination.
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Does Vitamin D Cause Weight Gain
The bottom line is what we are talking about. Its not likely that a deficiency of vitamins D and D2 will cause weight gain. It is worth avoiding if it causes other health problems. A combination of limited sun exposure, a diet rich in vitamins D and D, and taking vitamins D and D supplements is how you can maintain adequate levels of the suns UV rays.
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Recommendations For Future Research
Based on the above, we propose the following recommendations that may be kept in mind by prospective researchers who intend to study the preventive and therapeutic roles of vitamin D in depression:
Vitamin D Affects More Than Our Bones
Studies have found deficiency across a full spectrum of age groups.
In most people, this deficiency is subclinical. This means that while there may not be any visible signs or symptoms of deficiency, the body is quietly breaking down.
While extreme deficiency of vitamin D will show up in the body as rickets, which is the softening and weakening of bones, we see signs of deficiency in:
You can get natural vitamin D by spending a little time in the sun without sunscreen. But if you dont go to sleep before midnight, stress hormones in your body may become irregular, decreasing your vitamin D uptake!
- Immune system disorders
A 2008 study reported that vitamin D deficiency is common among otherwise healthy infants and toddlers, with one third of children showing signs of demineralization. Other research points out that the elderly as well as healthy young adults are at risk, and that vitamin D deficiency typically accompanies other serious health conditions, like heart disease.
The key to understanding this deficiency lies in hormone receptors. And while not every hormone will find a receptor in the body, a hormone without one is like a key with nowhere to go and nothing to do.
Vitamin D functions as a steroid hormone in the body. Other steroid hormones that you may be familiar with are testosterone and estrogen.
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Overall Levels Of Vitamin D And Changes Over Time
Table provides an overview of Vitamin D levels at baseline and follow-up, including changes over time and details by seasons. Overall, the average level of 25D was similar at both baseline and follow-up . As expected, both at baseline and follow-up, mean serum 25D concentration levels were insufficient when blood samples were collected in winter and spring compared to summer and autumn. When we looked at changes over time, 37% of ELSA respondents had insufficient levels of Serum 25D at both baseline and follow-up, with 31% presenting values> 50 nmol/L at both waves. The percentage of respondents with sufficient levels at baseline but not at follow-up was similar to that of respondents whose 25D increased over 50 nmol/L over time . A seasonality effect can be seen with regards to both baseline values and changes: 46% of the sample whose blood was collected in the summer or autumn at baseline had insufficient levels of vitamin D at baseline compared to 69% of respondents whose initial interviews were in winter or spring.
Table 1 Changes in hypovitaminosis D and mean vitamin D level at baseline and follow-upall sample and by baseline season.
What Vitamin Deficiency Causes Anxiety And Depression
Mental health problems such as memory loss, anxiety, depression, and insomnia can be caused by deficiencies in vitamins B1, B2, and B3. The brain is able to convert blood sugar into energy with the help of vitamins. The brain doesnt have enough energy to function normally if it doesnt have it.
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Research On Vitamin D And Depression
Part of the reason for the disagreement over whether vitamin D is a panacea for depression is because different analyses and trials over the years have yielded different conclusions. For instance, one 2015 meta-analysis of nine trials in which a total of 4,923 participants were given vitamin D supplementation to lower rates of depression found that there was no significant reduction in depression rates in the vitamin D takers.
The authors noted that most of the participants in these studies were only mildly depressed, however, and they tended to have sufficient total levels of vitamin D in their systems at the start of the studies.
Other analyses and studies have yielded somewhat different results. A 2022 meta-analysis of 41 studies showed that vitamin D supplementation seemed to reduce symptoms of depression in certain populations, such as people diagnosed with major depressive disorder and women with , but not in otherwise healthy peopleor in older people at all.
The positive effects of taking vitamin D also were more pronounced in shorter studies than in those lasting longer than 12 weeks. However, even though some of the studies appeared to show a link between vitamin D supplementation and a reduction in depression, the meta-analysis authors noted that differences in the way the studies were structured mean results could be biased.
Does Vitamin D Help With Sad
Medical professionals often prescribe vitamin D to help with seasonal affective disorder . Studies show that it might be as effective as light therapy. Since the 1980s, light therapy is one of the main forms of treatment for this type of depression. People with SAD typically have a vitamin D deficiency.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health , seasonal affective disorder is a form of depression that people get during certain seasons. They tend to get depressed during the fall from the winter months when there is less sunlight, but it can happen during spring and summer as well. This rarer kind of SAD is summer-pattern SAD or summer depression.
Other forms of treatment for SAD include:
- Difficulty making decisions
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The Impact Of Sunlight On Vitamin D Status
Assessment of vitamin D status will need consideration of other factors, such as light therapy and sun exposure. Exposure to sunlight accounts for over 90% of the vitamin D requirement for most individuals . Amount of exposure to ultraviolet B radiation is affected by latitude, season, and time of the day. It has been reported that sun exposure is greatest in spring to early fall and during sunlight hours . Although places closer to the equator have greater sun exposure , recently it has been reported that in even in these areas vitamin D insufficiency persists . Since it is possible that persons who are outdoors may be more physically active, it is important to consider whether sunshine alone or in combination with physical activity is related to improved mood.
Mind, a charity group in the United Kingdom, has recommend Ecotherapy as a treatment to depression. Ecotherapy involves exercising outdoors instead of inside a facility. A research study was done with 20 people each walked outside and at an indoor shopping center . Participants then rated their feelings of self-esteem, depression, and tension after both walks. Improvements were greater when walking outdoors as compared to walking indoors . Lack of information regarding specific measurements and methods used for data collection are significant limitations of this report.
How Is Vitamin D Linked To Depression
So far, nothing in our information about depression suggests that vitamin D might be a cause or a treatment. So, why has there been an upsurge of interest in using vitamin D to tackle depression?
To answer this question, its important to note that scientists have been interested in the role of diet in mental health for a very long time. Imagine if we could solve one of the worlds biggest health problems without the need for drugs or therapies, but simply by managing our diets? It would be brilliant news for sufferers of depression.
Research into this area has identified several nutrients that may be of interest, including iron, folate and vitamin B12. Scientists have noted that deficiencies in these nutrients might be associated with depression.
Similarly, early research has linked vitamin D deficiency with depression.
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