Happy Solstice - Low Light-Dark Nights And Vitamin D3 Deficiency
I love the winter Solstice - it's the night everything changes
I love the winter solstice!
The shortest day of the year (and the longest night) signal the start of another trip around the sun for me. This is the natural New Year point for me, which simply means that I celebrate a spiritual and seasonal turning point today - and a social calendar change on Dec 31st. What’s not to love about that?
The short days of winter trigger a low light level concern for anyone living in the colder parts of the north. Too much time indoors and bundled against the cold means we just don’t get anywhere near enough light exposure to provide sufficient Vitamin D.
Since Vitamin D is absolutely essential for our immune systems, it stands to reason that Vitamin D deficiency, which is widespread, remains a global health concern. A pooled analysis of over 7.9 Million participants published in 2023 shows that Vitamin D deficiency remains high around the world and is influenced by latitude and season. Women are more likely than men to suffer from a deficiency.
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with:
weak muscle strength
cardiovascular disease
multiple sclerosis
upper respiratory tract infections
increased risk of Covid infection
certain types of cancers
This makes Vitamin D deficiency something we should all be considering at the first sign of becoming unwell. This should not be an after thought, but a go-to assessment of health risk.
Are you getting enough Vitamin D?
RDA for Vitamin D is not about creating health
The RDA - or Recommended Daily Amount - for Vitamin D is a paltry 400-800 IU daily depending on your age. This is the amount needed to not suffer from Rickets - a bone deformation disease resulting from severe Vitamin D deficiency.
Not getting rickets is a poor benchmark for assessing your health.
I am not a doctor - and I am not recommending you take Vitamin D supplements - but the science on Vitamin D supplementation and safety is fascinating. And there are things you can do to support your health and raise the bar on your Vitamin D status.
Vitamin D Supplement Safety
According to a 2019 study based on 7 years of outpatient hospital data, Vitamin D supplementation in the ranges of 5000 to 50,000 IU daily were tolerated by patients with varying disease conditions and needs. None of the patients developed adverse effects as a result of this supplementation.
A 2021 randomized controlled trial, published in the journal Nutrients, divided patients with mild Covid symptoms and suboptimal Vitamin D levels into two groups. One group received 5000 IU Vitamin D3 daily for two weeks while the other group received only 1000 IU daily. The 5000 IU group recovered from their coughs 3 days faster, and recovered their sense of taste 5 days faster, on average compared to the 1000 IU group.
If you want to learn more about Vitamin D supplementation, then I suggest this podcast from Dr. Mark Hyman on the subject.
Optimizing Winter Health
Supplementing with Vitamin D is a personal choice. Regardless of that decision, you can boost your winter health by including more Vitamin D rich foods in your winter meals.
Foods rich in Vitamin D include:
fatty fish (trout, tuna, salmon, mackerel, sardines),
eggs (preferably pasture raised - one large yolk has 41 IU - two eggs for breakfast gives you 82 IU),
beef liver (3 oz of cooked beef liver has 42 IU),
mushrooms (1/2 cup of chanterelles has 56 IU)
[note: Vitamin D values give above come from this article]
A Salmon Solstice Feast
So here’s my plan for my Winter Solstice celebration:
Butter Poached Salmon with a white wine reduction. Here’s the recipe I found on Face Book.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18Nw6JMA6K/
The best part of the Winter Solstice is that the days start to get longer!
And even though the coldest two months of the year still lie ahead of me here in southern British Columbia, the longer days become noticeably different in just a couple of weeks.
I want to wish you all a very happy and restful holiday season. Thank you for your support this year and I look forward to serving up more mind-body-food connections for you in 2025!
Happy Solstice!
Related reading:
In 2025, I plan on focusing The Naturalized Human on finding ways to help you bring that healthy food and healthy life into fruition.
Here’s what’s coming:
- More on starting a garden
- More on how to use your garden to create more of your very own local food
- The latest research broken down into actions you can take
- Expanding workshops on seed saving, and how-to videos for paid subscribers
- Completion of the mind-body-food connection for paid subscribers
- More stories that illustrate how all of this comes together
I hope you will join me as a subscriber. Your support ensures I can deliver on all of that and much more.