Vitamin D mimics anabolic steroids – ups height, lowers myostatin, redirects excess calories to muscle instead of fat
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It looks like the humble vitamins may pack way more punch than medicine is willing to admit. Just minutes ago, I posted about vitamin B6 having anabolic effects on muscles. The study below demonstrates that vitamin D taken daily in doses that on a weekly basis are roughly equivalent to the commonly-prescribed 50,000 IU weekly dose by doctors, has some very interesting effects on muscles and bones. While medicine has reluctantly admitted to vitamin D being important for muscle function and having trophic effects, the findings of the study go way beyond those effects. Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are known to increase muscle mass and also reduce fat mass largely through their effects as glucocorticoid antagonists, muscle synthesis enhancers, and myostatin inhibitors. In other words, AAS have a “re-partinioning” effect – directing excess calories towards muscle building instead of fat, while also decreasing fat synthesis and enhancing its disposal. The study below found that vitamin D, in human-equivalent daily doses of about 100 IU / kg of bodyweight has largely the same effects as AAS. Crucially, the group of animals on the normal daily dose vitamin D (HED 20 IU / kg of bodyweight) did not experience the same anabolic/anticatabolic effects. This findings corroborates the several recent studies, which have argued that the RDA of vitamin D is woefully inadequate and the designation of 2,000+ IU daily by the FDA as a “pharmacological dose” is likely an underestimate by a factor of at least five (5). That implies the effective dose for vitamin D (for anything but simply preventing deficiency) may be around 10,000 IU daily, which almost perfectly matches the optimal dose of vitamin D discussed by the study below. Another interesting tidbit from the study is the admission that during weight loss regimens, once a person reaches 10% loss of their initial weight, muscle loss drastically increases and likely exceeds fat loss, thus turning negative the overall benefit from the weight loss regimen. This closely mirrors the findings of the “Biggest Loser” contestant studies, as well as my recent posts about the popular diabetes drug metformin and the “blockbuster” weight loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, etc. Based on this information, a logical conclusion is that (paradoxically) the key to weight loss is muscle gain, which will then lead to fat loss over time. In other words, the goal should be body repartitioning – exchanging fat for muscle – and not simply blind weight loss, which decimates muscle mass. As I have mentioned in many of my posts – lean muscle mass is the primary controller of resting metabolic rate (RMR). High muscle mass = high RMR = leanness and health. Low muscle mass = low RMR = eventual sarcopenic obesity (the worst possible outcome). The evidence available so far suggests that the widely recommended weight loss regimens of fasting, exhaustive exercise and drugs such as metformin, Ozempic, Wegovy, etc deliver the worst possible outcome over time – i.e. sarcopenic obesity. And last, but not least, the study found that using the high-ish dose vitamin D on other organisms increased total length, which strongly suggests that vitamin D can increase height in humans. That last part is probably less surprising than the effects of vitamin D on muscle mass, since even mainstream medicine admits that the main effects of vitamin D target the skeleton/bones, and deficiencies in this vitamin result in stunted growth and deformities.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38766160/
“…Scientists have largely examined these functions of vitamin D, regulation of fat metabolism and regulation of muscle mass and function, separately. However, fat mass and muscle mass are closely linked. Interventions that increase muscle mass increase both weight and fat mass. Conversely, when weight loss exceeds 10% of baseline weight, muscle mass loss increases proportionally to fat mass loss suggesting a complex relationship between fat and muscle mass. The mechanisms linking fat mass and muscle mass are poorly understood. The loss of muscle mass once weight loss exceeds 10% suggests that another checkpoint in energy balance may be energy needs. Myostatin has been conceptualized as having homeostatic effects on muscle mass. Our data suggests that myostatin may also work to convey energy needs.”
“…Thus, here we report for the first time that high dose dietary vitamin D preferentially allocates excess calories to build muscle instead of be stored as fat by increasing leptin production and sensitivity and decreasing myostatin signaling. In addition, we find that the effect of high-dose vitamin D to increases linear growth (Fig. 6). Using mendelian randomzation we found that the genes that predispose to incrased serum vitamin D (25D) also increase final height. This result confirms the clinical significiance of our work in humans, supporting the model that vitamin D conveys nutrient availability. We also found that high dose vitamin D increases growth in early zebrafish. This effect confirms the evolutionary importance of our work and lends further backing to the model vitamin D conveys nutrient availability. Strengths of this work include 1) a multidimensional assessment of strength and muscle function simultaneous with metabolism and fat mass, 2) an examination of the effects of low, normal and high-normal vitamin D muscle function and body composition in the context of healthy (e.g. lean) mice, 3) confirmation of the clinical significance of our findings using mendelian randomization and finally, 4) confirmation of the evolutionary significance of our findings using zebrafish. A weakness of this work is that we have not identified each of the mechanistic steps in how vitamin D decreases myostatin signaling and increases leptin production and sensitivity. Our results summarized in Table 2 at left give rise to our proposed new models for vitamin D action (Fig. 1b) and for energy balance sensing (Fig. 8, as opposed to energy stores sensing (Fig. 1a)). In our proposed model raising vitamin D from low to normal increases leptin production by fat, and further raising serum vitamin D levels from normal to high-normal concentrations increases leptin sensitivity (Fig. 1b.i.). Concurrent with these effects, raising vitamin D decreases myostatin signaling (Fig. 1b.ii.). Overall, these changes increase allocation of excess calories to muscle mass (Fig. 1b.iv.) and to linear growth (Fig. 1b.iii.) rather the storage of excess calories as fat.”
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@haidut With the half-life in mind, taking 10,000 IU-15,000 IU per day should have a better effect than taking the equivalent combined dose (70,000 IU - 105,000 IU/wk), right?
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@haidut great find in this Co2 study!
When you find studies like this do you email the authors of the studies any of Ray’s work to help steer their minds into more pro metabolic ways of thinking?
Also do you drinking baking soda water in any regularity? If so how much and how often? I personally love it.
Peace! -
Fascinating study. I wonder if high vitamin D doses like this combined with vitamin K2 would increase height after puberty?
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@Verdad Not only after my experience with both at any age can happen
