Level Up On Your Vitamin D

You may have heard about the importance of vitamin D for general health and tossed it on the “maybe I’ll get around to it” To-Do list of recommendations.

But according to recent studies, vitamin D’s role in fertility success is much more important than you may think.

The analysis of 11 studies including 2,700 women reported that those with adequate vitamin D were 33% more likely to achieve live birth than those with deficient or insufficient levels.

And if I were a gambling woman, I would bet that you might be running a little low. Only 26% of women in the studies analyzed had sufficient levels of vitamin D. Approximately 45% had insufficient levels and 35% were vitamin D deficient.

Vitamin D is a secosteroid hormone that regulates the expression of a large number of genes in reproductive tissues. Studies have demonstrated that the ovary is a target organ for the active metabolite of vitamin D3, 1,25(OH)2D3.

However, vitamin D deficiency is often clinically unrecognized. Be sure your doctor includes a vitamin D check in on your next lab workup. And take note that the healthy range has recently be raised to 50-70 ng/mL. The treatment of vitamin D deficiency is inexpensive and you can find high quality gel caps at any supplement store. Don’t ignore an opportunity for an easy correction. Have your labs checked and level up asap.