About 5 months ago my husband and I decided to get serious about losing the blubber we’d packed on in recent years. Each of us has lost about 20 pounds, and I must say we do both look much better now.
Both of us just had thorough check-ups. Interestingly, we were both told that we were deficient in the same 3 vitamins/minerals (I’m not going to say which ones as I don’t want to influence the answers in this thread).
You might think that as husband and wife we have very similar diets, but actually that is not the case - at breakfast he usually has eggs while I have oatmeal; lunch we eat separately; and while we do have dinner together when he’s home, he is on the road so much that we probably only have dinner together 15-20 days/month.
The only commonality I can think of that would explain our identical blood profiles is our shared weight loss. Hence my question: are there certain deficiencies that tend to crop up when you lose weight, regardless of the diet used? (My method was just to eat less, avoid complex carbs, do some intermittent fasting, and exercise lots; my husband has pretty much followed the Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet, where you eat 2 low-carb meals and one normal meal each day).
In a more perfect world this would be a GQ forum question, but given that our knowledge of nutrition and weight loss still has gaps, I’m putting this thread in IMHO.
I’ve been eating a low carbohydrate diet for more than 20 years. When I started I did some research and plugged my diet into some calculators and found that I was low in potassium, calcium, and magnesium. I switched to using one of those fake table salts made from potassium chloride and added a cheap calcium/magnesium supplement.
Apparently at risk for C, zinc, and lycopene. I am sure not your healthcare provider, but also at risk for in house testing at some places to almost always diagnose deficiencies that can best be fixed with stuff they sell.
I’m not an expert by any means, but I do have one question and one thought.
The question: When’s the last time you two had a check-up before this? In other words, do you know what your vitamin levels were prior to your weight loss, so are you really sure that this deficiency is due to your weight loss?
The thought: Even if you guys don’t eat the same things, if you’ve been avoiding the same things I can see a possible explanation there. From the OP, it sounds like you both have been cutting carbs? In which case it would make sense that vitamins and minerals present in carbohydrates would dip. Or if you both cut/reduced your red meat intake, then it would make sense for you two to have a deficiency in those vitamins/minerals.
I’m not a RL doctor and I’m no expert, but since this is IMHO I’ll echo The wind of my soul and say it’s no the weight loss per se, but the foods you both have cut back on. Anecdote and stealth brag: I have recently lost 20 lbs as well, but my blood work was perfect.
Alright, I will chime in with the three nutrients we were both told we needed more of: calcium, vitamin D, and B12.
We eat a fair bit of cheese, so I’m a bit surprised at the calcium. As to vitamin D, we live in the tropics and exercise outside all the time! So that one seems really strange. The B12 is a little surprising as we consume a moderate amount of animal products, though not much red meat. I can’t speak for my husband as I don’t know exactly what he’s eating all the time, but I eat lots of vegetables, tofu, complex carbs like oats, sorghum, teff, etc., a bit of fruit, lots of fish, and some chicken, eggs, and limited amounts of other animal proteins.
I kind of wonder about something kind of like this. We both had executive check-ups in Singapore, which has marvelous health care but also a rather generous approach to supplements ranging from standard vitamins to the woo-est of alternative medicines. It is a bit jarring to go into the pharmacy in Singapore, as totally science-based products are sold next to unproven elixirs promising to grow hair, help you lose weight, etc. So it is not precisely that the medical group directly benefits from the sales of supplements, but for sure there is a very well entrenched tendency to recommend all kinds of dietary stuff.
I can only offer anecdata, I’m sfraid, but FWIW I have also lost a fair bit of weight and was recently diagnosed as deficient in these same three vitamins. I was given an NHS prescription for supplements, so no cash incentive was involved on the part of the doctors.
Sorry, I missed answering this. I’m not sure when we had physicals thorough that it would catch vitamin deficiencies. We both had complete check-ups in 2011 that did not note any of these problems, but I am not sure if a standard wellness check would catch these nutritional issues (maybe it would, I just don’t know). The physicals we just did were quite extensive.
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I’d agree with this. Calcium absorption tends to decrease with time, which is one reason why bone density tests are generally performed on older individuals instead of younger people. Apparently older individuals are also at higher risk for B12 deficiency due to gastric issues that develop later in life.
If your doctor recommended a supplement, I’d take it or evaluate your diet to determine if there are areas where you could add more foods rich in those nutrients. If you’re feeling good, though, I doubt you should worry too much. Most of those numbers are average ranges of normal, so your mileage may vary.
Congrats on the weight loss, by the way, OP! That’s great news.
Blood level calcium is not indicative of calcium nutritional need or body stores. Most of the body’s calcium is stored in bones. The level of calcium free floating in the bloodstream is tightly regulated pretty much independent of your intake. If you were not taking enough in via diet you’d absorb more efficiently, excrete less, and take it out of the bone stores, as needed, but you would not see that in your serum calcium level. Vitamin D and another hormone - parathyroid hormone (PTH) are key parts of maintaining that balance.
Low Vitamin D levels in indeed pretty common and low normal calcium levels may be a secondary result of that. What often gets lost in the understanding of Vitamin D is that is actually a hormone (what is actually measured, 25-hydroxy vitamin D, a compound that gets modified to become the biologically active hormone, 1,25-hydroxy vitamin D). Serum levels are impacted by low production (not enough sunlight) and/or low intake, but that’s not all that goes into determining the serum level. In addition to its role in keeping serum calcium within an acceptable range it is also involved in inflammation. The possibility of low Vitamin D causing inflammation is very well publicized but of course the association of low grade chronic inflammation with low Vitamin D can go the other way: inflammatory states can result in decreases in measured vitamin D as well (as the less active but measured 25-hydroxy gets converted to the more biologically active 1,25-hydroxy form).
B12 deficiency is also associated with some inflammatory states … and decreased stomach acid levels that occur with age or that are the result of medications that decrease stomach acid, and by a different mechanism with metfomin use.
Not sure that any of that applies to the both of you.