With health and fitness supplement use on the rise, the intake of essential vitamins and minerals will hopefully increase, as well. But as of this writing, 92% of American men still don’t get enough Vitamin D. Most people know that this vitamin is added to milk for this very reason, but the largest source of Vitamin D is actually when our own body makes it after interacting with sunlight. Why is this all important? Because study after study has started to show an inextricable link between Vitamin D and Testosterone.
What You Need to Know
Best Data Yet
In a study from ten years ago, 165 people who were trying to lose weight were separated into two groups–people given Vitamin D supplements, and people who took nothing. 54 men were included in the sample population, and among those who took Vitamin D, total testosterone increased 30% and free testosterone shot up 20%.
One important note is that all the participants were trying to lose weight–that means all of them were dieting, and all of them were exercising. These are two factors that researchers had previously known will increase testosterone. In this study, however, the Vitamin D populations had significantly increased testosterone over those other people. To find out why, we’ll have to dig a little bit into the chemistry.
Vitamin D Receptors (VDR)
It turns out that one of the key roles that Vitamin D plays is a messenger. Similar to how ATP signals nerves and neurons to fire, Vitamin D tells the cells in men’s testes to produce and release testosterone. Not only has this been proven in the lab with petri dishes, but a large scale study found that when a man has long-term Vitamin D deficiency, his Leydig cells (the ones in the testes making testosterone) actually become less sensitive to making testosterone from other stimuli.
This basically means that for many men, even when they’re doing everything else right, taking all the right supplements, eating right, and exercising, if they aren’t getting enough Vitamin D, they won’t make testosterone.
Proof in the Wild
If that all wasn’t enough to convince you, consider a study with over 2,000 men, studied and observed for months, there was a direct correlation between Vitamin D, testosterone, and all other androgen markers. In fact, using something called a regression model, the researchers were able to predict how much testosterone they’d find in a man’s system based on–you may have guessed it–the seasons.
During peak sunlight months (August), men had significantly higher testosterone levels. Using statistical analysis, this team of researchers was able to tease out any other outlier data points to exclude coincidence. The one common factor among normal testosterone levels was Vitamin D; and the one common factor among men with low T was low Vitamin D.
Final Call
At this point, you’re probably trying to plan your next sunny day to soak up the rays and rack up the testosterone. Unfortunately many of us can’t plan our physical health around sun exposure. We have jobs inside, we live in cloudy or overcast regions, or we simply don’t have the time to sit around outside basking in the sun. Thankfully, there are a number of testosterone boosting supplements on the market with all the Vitamin D you’ll ever need – like TestoMax, with 262% of your RDA. With quality supplements, you can thumb your nose at the sun–and still get your T boosted.
Hi greatgreenwall.org admin, Good job!
Thank you 🙂
Can you specify exactly how much Vitamin D the participants took? Thanks
Hi Sneed,
Thank you for your question.
The participants took either 83 μg vitamin D.
The study is linked in the article, in case you want to read more details.
Kind Regards,
Sam