What are the symptoms of a vitamin D deficiency?

Are you unmotivated, tired, sleepless and listless in autumn and winter? Vitamin D deficiency could be a reason for these complaints. But these are by no means all typical symptoms.

The most important points in brief:

• Without the light of the sun, people tend to be deficient in vitamin D in autumn and winter.
• An unbalanced diet also leads to a vitamin D deficiency.
• Constant tiredness, a lack of motivation, poor concentration and listlessness can be warning signs that vitamin D is lacking.
• But sleep disorders, bone and joint pain, hair loss or an irrepressible desire for sweets are often indications of an undersupply.

There are some symptoms in which a deficiency in vitamin D only becomes noticeable at an advanced age. For example, Alzheimer's can be a long-term consequence, but also so-called bone softening, called osteomalacia in adults. This clinical picture is caused by a disturbance in the metabolism of the bones, which makes the basic substance of the bones softer.

As a result, fractures may never heal completely. Even with a good healing process, it takes significantly longer for the broken bone parts to grow together again. The problem: even children can suffer from these symptoms if they have a vitamin D deficiency. In childhood, however, this disease is called rickets.

Insufficient vitamin D: the typical symptoms

However, there are significantly more symptoms that result from an undersupply of vitamin D can occur. Anyone who has persistent problems with painful joints or bones that are not caused by external circumstances could suffer from a lack of vitamin D. Permanent tiredness and persistent listlessness also indicate a deficiency, as well as a frequently occurring state of nervousness.

Poor eyesight and hair loss can also be the result of an insufficient supply of vitamin D, as well as sleep disorders and an inexplicable, spontaneous appetite for many sweets that often appears out of nowhere. Anyone who suffers from recurring concentration problems should also check their vitamin D balance.

So there is no such thing as “the one” symptom that immediately leads us on the right track of the missing vitamin. Of course, all of the indicators mentioned can also point to other diseases. But especially in the onset of winter, when we are psychologically cracked anyway, missing vitamins and especially vitamin D are a great danger that winter depression will strike. Vitamin D is not only important physically, but also psychologically, because it is an important basic substance that helps the organism to produce the so-called happiness hormones dopamine and serotonin.

Where does vitamin D deficiency actually come from?

Anyone suffering from one or more of the symptoms mentioned should not panic right away; Excitement is bad advice. You better check analytically where the vitamin D deficiency could be coming from. Do you spend a lot of time in dark rooms in autumn and winter, for example in the office? Do you lack daylight, are you rarely out in the fresh air? Then the danger of insufficient supply of vitamin D is real - because humans need sunlight. Plants use the sun's radiation to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen by photosynthesis, while human skin actually produces vitamin D in the sun's light.

Although an unbalanced diet is also a factor in a deficiency in vitamin D, you can only get a maximum of 20 percent of the requirement through food intake. The missing 80 percent have to cover people with sunlight or use supplements that contain vitamin D.