Tip: Why Your Vitamin D Isn't Working Search Skip to content Menu Menu follow us Store Articles Community Loyal-T Club Loyal-T Points Rewards Subscribe to Save Search Search The World s Trusted Source & Community for Elite Fitness EatingSupplements Tip Why Your Vitamin D Isn t Working Taking vitamin D Awesome Just about everyone needs to Too bad it' s probably not working Here' s why and how to fix it by Chris Shugart March 12, 2018July 14, 2022 Tags Magnesium, Nutrition & Supplements, Super Health, Tips, Vitamin D A Butt-Load of Studies If you printed out every scientific study on vitamin D and taped them all together, end to end, the length of that paper would stretch all the way around Kim Kardashian's fake ass... twice. Yeah, that's a LOT of studies. And they pretty much all say the same thing: most people have a vitamin D deficiency. Low vitamin D has been linked to a ton of problems: A deficiency can lead to a loss of strength and poor athletic performance. A deficiency can make it more likely that you'll get fat and get type 2 diabetes, cancer, or heart disease. It can make it harder to build muscle. It can wreck a woman's sex drive and ability to have wake-the-neighbors orgasms. A deficiency may even lead to depression and low T. The list goes on. And that's why most of us supplement with 1000 to 5000 IUs of vitamin D3 per day, especially in the winter. But now a new study says all that supplementing may not be doing us any good if we're deficient in something else: magnesium. The research... is pretty damn boring. So I'll bullet point a review published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association: Vitamin D can't be metabolized without sufficient magnesium levels. That means a lot of that supplemental D you're taking remains stored and inactive. About 50 percent of Americans aren't even getting the minimal RDA of magnesium: 420mg for people born with penises and 320mg for people born with vaginas. (Gender and sex are SO confusing these days.) People with optimum magnesium levels require less vitamin D. Besides causing your vitamin D supplements to "not work right," that un-metabolized vitamin D can increase your calcium and phosphate levels, and that could lead to vascular calcification, which is not a good thing. In a nutshell, your vitamin D intake may be technically okay, at least if you get a lot of sunshine or supplemental D. It's your magnesium deficiency that could be the real root cause of the problem. Get more magnesium, of course. Now, we could list a whole bunch of foods that contain a good amount of magnesium, but there's a problem. Industrialized agriculture has stripped away a lot of the magnesium in whole foods. On top of that, lifters and athletes excrete more magnesium than average people (as do people under stress). One tough workout can deplete magnesium levels for up to 18 days. So you'd have to eat a whole bunch of spinach, Swiss chard, and pumpkin seeds to replace it. So the best source of magnesium is a quality supplement that uses fully chelated magnesium. The top choice is ElitePro Mineral Support. American Osteopathic Association. Low magnesium levels make vitamin D ineffective: Up to 50 percent of US population is magnesium deficient. ScienceDaily. 26 February 2018. Get The T Nation Newsletters Don' t Miss Out Expert Insights To Get Stronger, Gain Muscle Faster, And Take Your Lifting To The Next Level related posts Supplements Magnificent Magnesium Most lifters are deficient in magnesium, and that’s affecting their ability to build muscle and lose fat. Here’s why and how to fix it. Carb Control, Insulin Sensitivity, Magnesium, Nutrition & Supplements, Vitamin D Brian St Pierre September 30 Eating There Are Only 3 Types Of Diets There are really just three basic approaches to getting ripped. The key? Identifying which strategy works best for you. Here's how to do it. Losing Fat, Nutrition & Supplements Charles Staley July 15 Eating Stop Taking Multivitamins Multivitamins don't work. But there are 19 things that do help you live longer, look better, and perform optimally. Here they are. Diet Strategy, Dietary Myth Busting, Feeding the Ideal Body, Nutrition & Supplements TC Luoma October 7 Eating Overeating The Science of Sensory Specific Satiety Has science found the cause and maybe even the cure for overeating? Here's why there's always room for dessert and what to do about it. Feeding the Ideal Body, Losing Fat TC Luoma December 28