Can One Vitamin Really Be That Important When It Comes To Healthy Testosterone Production?
Well The Short Answer Is Yes & Vitamin D Is That Vitamin!
Discover Why It Is So Important & How You Can Get Enough Daily
What Is this important vitamin, and why are Vitamin D and Testosterone so strongly linked?
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin. It is often referred to as the ‘sunshine vitamin’, this is due to the majority being produced from the skin responding to sunlight. The active form functions as a steroid hormone in the body, this is the primary reason that it is believed to boost testosterone levels and sperm quality. It is also responsible for multiple bodily functions. Helping to protect against diseases such as cancer and immune disorders. It also helps control the absorption of calcium and phosphate in the body, making it vital for keeping bones and teeth healthy.
Vitamin D and Testosterone
Sadly based on modern lifestyles, large portions of the population get very little exposure to sunlight. This has led to low and some cases deficient levels of vitamin D. In fact according to national surveys in the UK, approximately 1 in 5 people have very low/ deficient vitamin D levels. In reality, the majority of people who don’t live in extremely sunny climates all year round get less sun than they should & have lower vitamin D (and testosterone) levels than they should as a result. This lowering of sunlight exposure & vitamin D levels has in turn led to lower testosterone levels. One study in particular found an extremely close correlation to vitamin D deficiency and low testosterone levels.
What they found was, when the participants spent more time in the summer sun, their vitamin D levels increased and their testosterone levels did as well. You can check it out below.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20050857
There was a year long study investigating how supplementation with vitamin D increases testosterone naturally. There were 65 male participants, these were split into two groups. One group (half) took 3,300 IU of vitamin D every day. The vitamin D levels of this group doubled and their testosterone levels increased by around 20%. So as you can see getting at least 3,300 IU of vitamin daily can increase testosterone naturally by a significant amount.
How Much Vitamin D Do You Need?
The endocrine society recommend 2,000 IU (international units) per day. As you can see studies suggest that a higher amount greatly benefited testosterone levels. If you live in a country that doesn’t get sun all year round, I personally recommend supplementing with at least 3,000 IU daily.
I personally supplement with a bit over 4,000 IU daily and get as much sunlight exposure as I realistically can! Something else to bear in mind is the darker your complexion, the more vitamin D you will need. So if you do have a darker complexion, I’d recommend supplementing closer to 4,000 IU.
Food Sources Of Vitamin D
As we’ve covered sunlight is the main source if vitamin D but their are some food sources as well, which are as follows:
- Eggs Yolks
- Mushrooms (If exposed to sunlight)
- Tuna
- Mackerel
- Salmon
- Beef Liver
Supplements
Unless you live somewhere like Arizona in the US, it’s highly unlikely you get enough sunlight daily so you will need to supplement to get optimum Vitamin D and testosterone levels. Dependent on how much sunlight you get daily and your complexion, I’d recommend 2,000 – 4,000 IU daily.
So the less sunlight you get, the more you will need to supplement and the darker your skin complexion, the more you will need to supplement. I personally use a testosterone booster supplement called The Military Muscle Testosterone Booster Complex. It contains over the 3,100 IU reflected in the study & it contains 10 nutrients shown to increase testosterone naturally. More importantly each nutrient is in high enough concentration, clinically proven to boost testosterone production.
You can check out my military muscle testosterone booster review to learn more here
You can also supplement vitamin D individually. Find out more about this & the vitamin D brands I recommend in my article below.
Recommended Testosterone Boosting Supplements
Final Thoughts & Future Articles
I hope you have found this article on why Vitamin D and Testosterone are linked so closely, and why Vitamin D is vital to increase testosterone naturally useful! If you have any questions in regard to Vitamin D or ways to increase testosterone in general, just drop me a comment and I’ll get back to you. Please feel free to share this article with anyone else you think may find it interesting, you can also follow me on my social media social sites.
I cover lots of different ways to increase testosterone naturally & all things related to testosterone production. A quick shout out to Feedpsot, who included me in their Top 60 Mens Health blogs. Check it out for content related to male health & more on ways to increase testosterone naturally.