Living in our modern, fast-paced world comes with the common symptoms of feeling tired and fatigued every now and again. Hitting the snooze button, reaching for the extra cup of coffee, and the mid-day yawn are all familiar practices that we tend to experience on a daily basis. However, if you feel more tired than you do energized or more achy than you do well, then there could be something underlying within your health that you may not be aware of. A lot of the time, fixing a nutrient deficiency can help to alleviate a lot of these common symptoms.
Two potential causes of low energy levels and achy muscles could be low measures of vitamin B-12 and vitamin D. If you tend to follow a vegetarian or vegan diet, you might be more susceptible to being deficient in these vitamins. However, those who eat omnivorously can experience lower levels of these as well! The good news is, knowing where your vitamin levels are measuring is the first step in improving your health and ridding yourself of the common symptoms!
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Common Symptoms of Vitamin B-12 and Vitamin D Deficiency
If you suspect you may be lacking the adequate amount of one of these vitamins, then knowing the signs and symptoms could be very beneficial in helping to determine your health status.
Here are the most common symptoms of a vitamin B-12 and vitamin D deficiency
Vitamin B-12
- Breathlessness or dizziness
- Brain fog
- Pale or jaundiced skin
- Weakness or fatigue
- Pins and needles sensation
- Mouth ulcers
- Mood changes
Vitamin D
- Bone pain
- Brain fog
- Muscle aches or pains
- Fatigue
- Feeling foggy
- Mood changes
As you can see, the frequent symptoms associated with these two vitamin deficiencies are closely related. This is why it is important to make sure you get tested for both if you are experiencing any of these indications so you can improve, eliminate, and reverse these negative health traits!
How to Get Tested
Luckily, the days of having to schedule an appointment and take the day off from work in order to go to the doctor and get your blood drawn are long gone. Our modern world allows us to experience at-home vitamin testing or at-home blood testing to be done when it is convenient for you. You can order a kit that gets delivered to your door where you will be given a kit to send your sample in yourself. With testing kits and programs you can get your levels tested and fix your symptoms over time while tracking your progress with an interactive app!
How Diana fixed her deficiencies and boosted her energy levels
Diana started using Base to shed some light on how her hormone imbalances were causing her lack of mental clarity and energy levels. She ordered the at-home test to gain some insight as to what could be going on internally within her body and how she could start regulating her levels.
“A few months back, I was struggling with brain clarity and mental focus. I decided to try Base out, and I found out that I had super low levels of Vitamin D and specifically Vitamin B12. I started taking V12 supplements (recommended by Base) along with walks outside, and I’m a new person. I would have never gone through the hassle of going to the doctor for something like this and probably wouldn’t understand the root cause of my issues for a lot longer. Base doesn’t just make it easier to track your health, it also explains each biomarker and its impact on your body, which is awesome.”
Up to 15% of people don’t get enough B12, and they’re more likely to be vegetarians, have celiac disease, digestive issues, or be an adult over 50. When it comes to vitamin D, the case is usually worse— where 70% to 80% of people are deficient. This crucial vitamin plays a huge part in your overall energy levels as stated prior.
Vitamin B-12 is one of the eight B vitamins that helps to convert the food you eat into glucose, which gives your body immediate energy. Vitamin D helps your cells produce energy, so you can see how a lack of this vitamin directly affects your body’s vitality.
But vitamin D and B-12 aren’t like other vitamins. You can only get these vitamins from very specific food sources and natural sunlight.
Vitamin D can be found in food sources like salmon, sardines, herring, cod-liver oil, canned tuna, egg yolks, mushrooms, and fortified milk such as cow’s milk, soy milk, and orange juice. It’s important to note that although you can find vitamin D in food sources, your body needs the natural light exposure from the sun in order to convert this vitamin into the active compound— D3, for your body to utilize.
Vitamin B-12 is only found in foods such as cheese, dairy, meat, eggs, fish, and fortified cereals.
Sometimes, supplementing is needed in order to help you along the path of rebalancing out your levels and giving your body the boost it needs in order to reverse the deficiency you have.
Diana used Base to help shed light into her diminishing vitamin D and B-12 levels. From there, she was able to accurately supplement those levels and return her body back into a homeostasis state. She now uses Base to monitor and keep track of all of her vitamin and mineral measurements, making sure she is improving her health in order to reduce her mental exhaustion and fatigue.
Improve your energy levels - get your levels tested!
If you are struggling with fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches and pains, or mood swings your levels of vitamin D and B-12 may be to blame! Be like Diana and become one of the many users of our Base services to get vitamin testing, cure your brain fog, and regain your energy levels naturally.
Sources
- Parva, N., Tadepalli, S., Singh, P., Qian, A., Joshi, R., Kandala, H., … Cheriyath, P. (2018, June 5). Prevalence of Vitamin D Deficiency and Associated Risk Factors in the US Population (2011-2012). Retrieved December 01, 2020, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6075634/
- M. Abboud, D., M. Abboud, M., M. Abboud, M., P. Ameri, A., A. Banerjee, L., WS. Bang, D., … Zittermann, A. (1970, January 01). Mechanisms of vitamin D on skeletal muscle function: Oxidative stress, energy metabolism and anabolic state. Retrieved December 01, 2020, from https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-019-04104-x
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