You could be vitamin deficient and not know it, warns doctor. This is how you find out
If you can think of a letter, there’s probably a vitamin to match. But do we know what each vitamin does, or how they impact our bodies? We may understand that it’s essential to pack our diets and lifestyles with as many vitamins, minerals and nutrients as possible to keep our bodies in the best condition, but taking active steps to shape our diets around this thinking can be a different story entirely.
‘Hidden hunger’ may be what you’re experiencing if you’re not consuming a diet that is nutritionally satisfying. It’s estimated that two billion people are experiencing hidden hunger due to insufficient diets, resulting in poor micronutrient levels.
Recognising what each vitamin does and how to source it can be the key to boosting your physical fitness and mental well-being, particularly as your body doesn’t produce vitamins itself.
It’s safe to say that a lot of these vitamins will already be in your everyday diet if you have a varied palette. That means enjoying plenty of fruit and vegetables, protein-rich foods, fibre-filled carbohydrates, and a variety of dairy products or vegan alternatives that provide calcium and support gut-building bacteria.
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Having a varied diet is the key to nutritional success, as NHS GP and GP trainer Dr Adam Staten from One Day Tests explains: ‘The body can't make vitamins and minerals (with the exception of vitamin D), and so we have to get them from our diets.
‘Although we only need them in tiny amounts, they are essential for all the biological processes in our bodies, like transportation of oxygen, the functioning of enzymes, nerve function and muscle contractions and almost any other process you can think of. This is why deficiencies in vitamins and minerals can have such wide-ranging effects on our health.
‘The human body is perfectly set up to get vitamins and minerals from food and, as with all aspects of nutrition, the best way to take nutrients in is through the diet. This plays to our natural biology but also, when taking vitamins and minerals in through food, there are usually extra benefits. For example, fruit is a good source of vitamins and by eating fruit you also get a good source of fibre, something you wouldn't get if you just took a vitamin pill.’
Vitamins will either be water-soluble or fat-soluble. Fat-soluble vitamins are retained in the body, whereas water-soluble vitamins are not stored in the body, and you need to make an effort to eat these vitamins more frequently in your diet. Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat-soluble vitamins, whereas vitamins B and C are water-soluble.
‘All vitamins are essential for our health, and they all have different roles in supporting our health,’ explains Sophie Medlin, consultant dietician and in-house expert at supplement organisation Heights.
‘For example, if we think simplistically, B vitamins are all essential for our metabolic health, nerve function and the production of neurotransmitters like serotonin and melatonin. Vitamin D is essential for immunity and bone health, vitamin A is essential for vision, immune function and gene expression.
‘Vitamin E protects our cells from oxidative damage and also supports the immune system, while vitamin K is required to support blood clotting and bone health. Vitamin C is required for collagen synthesis and also supports our body in fighting oxidative stress. These are all the key vitamins, and we need all of them, in adequate quantities, to function well as a human. This is before we mention all the other nutrients like minerals and trace elements.’
Vitamin A
Vitamin A maintains your body in a healthy, stable condition. That may be boosting immune function, supporting reproductive growth or helping your vision.
It’s recommended that post-menopausal women and older men at increased risk of developing osteoporosis should monitor their vitamin A intake, as overconsumption of the vitamin for a long period of time has been found to increase the risk of bone fractures.
Sources: Oily fish, spinach, sweet potatoes, apricots, papaya, Goat cheese, butter.
Vitamin B
Vitamin B is typically referred to as the B complex vitamins, as it’s formed of eight vitamins. They each support your body and offer different nutritional values.
To make it more complicated, they also don’t get labelled from B1 to B8. That’s because how we recognise the essential B vitamins we need in our diet changes throughout history as we learn more about nutrition, which is why you may not see B4 listed as a diet staple, as it’s now listed as a non-essential. That’s because scientists have now recognised B4 as adenine, which is one of the nucleic acids that build the structure of our DNA. It’s still useful, but it’s not going to be a supplement you can add to foods!
The eight B vitamins that should be in your diet include:
- Thiamine (B1) – Breaks down food in your body to help release energy.
- Riboflavin (B2) – Improves the health of your skin, nervous system and eyes.
- Niacin (B3) – Maintains healthy skin and helps the body access energy from food.
- Pantothenic acid (B5) – Helps the body break down food to release energy.
- Pyridoxine (B6) – Helps the body to form haemoglobin, which is the substance in your red blood cells that carries oxygen.
- Biotin (B7) – Supports the body to make fatty acids, with small amounts of biotin produced in our bowels.
- Folate (B9) – Also called folic acid when manmade, folate supports your body in producing red blood cells.
- Cobalamin (B12) – Releases energy from food and supports the nervous system by making red blood cells.
Data collected from the National Diet and Nutrition survey found that 1 in 10 women aren’t consuming their recommended intake of B2. Milk products in the UK have been found to include nearly a third of your recommended intake, so eating a bowl of cereal for breakfast may already be a great diet swap to hit your B vitamin targets.
Swapping a white carbohydrate with a wholegrain carbohydrate can also be a simple swap to stretch out the nutritional value of your meal. That’s because 50% of B1 content is lost when grains are milled and turned into white flour, losing the fibre-rich qualities that support our bodies by releasing energy in our food.
Dr Adam adds ‘No food contains all the necessary vitamins and minerals, and so to make sure you are getting everything you need, you need to eat lots of different types of food - humans have evolved to be omnivores, and the body expects to be fed all kinds of food. Any kind of restrictive diet puts you at risk of nutritional deficiencies. This is true of diets that are otherwise usually considered to be healthy, such as a vegan diet, which often lacks vitamin B12 and iron because key sources of these micronutrients are meat and dairy.’
If you eat a plant-based diet, you may not be consuming enough B12, as this isn’t typically found in grains or fruit and vegetables, in comparison to meat and dairy. Adding a B12 supplement to your food or actively including more fortified foods in your diet should help to make sure that you’re consuming all the B complex vitamins that you need.
Sources: Meat, fish, cheese, kidney beans, unsweetened soya drinks, fortified breakfast cereals, Marmite, nutritional yeast.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C, also called ascorbic acid, will support your body’s immunity through healing wounds, protecting the health of cells and maintaining a healthy status for your bones, skin and blood vessels.
You may have been warned about the effects of having insufficient vitamin C intake as a child, with the threat of scurvy. Scurvy is a rare condition that people develop when they have too little vitamin C consumption from not eating enough fruit and vegetables.
When you have scurvy, you experience poor energy, joint pain, and easily bruise. It’s not a common condition and is infamous for impacting groups of poorly-fed pirates centuries ago.
Sources: Citrus fruit, peppers, broccoli, Kakadu plums, red cherries.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D keeps your bones, teeth and muscles in a healthy condition by regulating the amount of calcium and phosphate you have in your body.
In the UK, 1 in 6 adults has too low a vitamin D intake. In environments with reduced sunlight and UV exposure, particularly in the winter months, health care professionals recommend consuming daily vitamin D supplements.
Supplements can help, but a balanced diet is also key, as Sophie explains: ‘The best way to understand this is to look at your diet and ensure you’re having plenty of foods from all the major food groups, including fruits, vegetables, whole grain carbohydrates, healthy fats, lean protein, dairy and nuts and seeds.
‘If we don’t consume some of these foods on a daily basis, we need to look at what those foods provide and consider supplementing the missing nutrients. You can also access blood tests from reputable companies like Randox or Thriva to understand what your blood levels of key nutrients are. Of course, during the winter months we need to take vitamin D supplements as we can’t get enough from the sun, and people with darker skin tones will need to supplement vitamin D all year round.’
Sources: Red meat, egg yolks, fortified breakfast cereals, sunlight.
Vitamin E
Vitamin E improves the quality of your skin barrier and maintains your eye health.
It’s likely that vitamin E has been promoted on skincare products you’ve seen before, but it can be boosted through your diet, too. Try adding a handful of nuts to your next snack plate for an easy way to boost your vitamin E intake.
Sources: Nuts, seeds, plant oils.
Vitamin K
Vitamin K helps your body recover from wounds and aids in blood clotting to prevent excessive bleeding. On average, an adult needs to be consuming 1mcg per kilogram of their body weight.
It’s built on two compounds: phylloquinone (K1) and menaquinone (K2). Phylloquinone will be found in plants, mainly leafier greens, and primarily helps with blood clotting. Menaquinone will be found in animal products or fermented foods and helps activate a bone-forming protein in our bodies.
Sources: Breakfast cereals, leafy greens, vegetable oil.
What can you do about vitamin deficiency?
A vitamin deficiency is something that you should try to avoid as much as possible, and that work starts on the dinnerplate. Although everyone’s health is different and may require different supplements or food requirements, understanding what nutrients your body needs is the first step in taking control of your health and well-being.
The impacts of poor nutrition can be dangerous, as Dr Adam explains: ‘The danger depends on which vitamins and minerals are lacking and how deficient we become in them.
‘Mild deficiencies may cause minor or vague symptoms, but severe deficiencies (which are unusual in a wealthy society such as the UK) can cause potentially life-threatening problems. Vitamin B12 is a good example of this. Mild deficiency is pretty common and tends to cause vague symptoms such as tiredness, 'brain fog', or a general deterioration in your sense of well-being.
‘Severe deficiency, on the other hand, causes progressive nerve damage and anaemia. If the deficiency was left untreated and allowed to progress, it can ultimately lead to coma, heart failure and death. In practice, this wouldn't happen when there is access to healthcare, but this spectrum of issues is common to most vitamins and minerals.
‘A sadly more common example of how dangerous deficiencies can be is seen in people who restrict their dietary intake, such as people suffering from anorexia. This can lead to severe deficiencies in nutrients like sodium or magnesium, which can result in potentially fatal complications.’
Cutting out too many foods from your diet may be contributing to your ‘hidden hunger’ and preventing your body from accessing the vitamins it needs. Having a balanced diet where you don’t restrict food, but understand how to consume things in healthy volumes, is key, as Sophie explains: ‘The key is to eat a varied diet that includes food from all of the food groups.
‘If we cut out one group or have a limited fruit and vegetable intake, we can easily become deficient in the nutrients those foods provide. Specifically for B vitamins, we benefit from including animal protein, either as meat, fish or dairy. If we don’t include those, we should consider a B vitamin complex supplement.
‘Fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are key for getting plenty of the other key vitamins we need, so trying to maximise those in your diet is important. This could be setting a goal to have at least 2 different fruits or vegetables with your three main meals and one snack per day containing nuts and seeds, and perhaps an extra piece of fruit. At this time of year, mixed vegetable soups are a great way of bringing more vitamins into your diet as well as having a mixed fruit and veg smoothie each day.’
‘One of the simplest ways to make sure you are getting plenty of vitamins and minerals is to make sure that your diet is colourful,’ explains Dr Adam. ‘A beige diet is basically the enemy of adequate nutrition, whereas a diet that contains lots of colourful foods will also have lots of micronutrients in it. If you think of the government advice to eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables each day and picture a plate with those 5 portions on it, then it would be a colourful plate of food.’
Maxing your minerals
When you’re looking at how to get as many vitamins as possible, you may be wondering what minerals to prioritise (or even what a mineral is). Minerals are micronutrients, just like vitamins.
Some of the key minerals are:
- Calcium – Keeps your bones and teeth strong and healthy, mainly found in dairy and added into soya products.
- Iron – Helps your body to produce red blood cells, mainly found in liver, beans and nuts.
- Iodine – Maintains a healthy rate for your metabolism, mainly found in dairy products and shellfish.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not replace medical advice. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional if you experience concerning symptoms.
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