Why You’re Always Tired, Moody, and Possibly Increasing your Risk of Disease
Common nutrient deficiencies that have you feeling like crap and how to get more of them in your diet
There’s a lot of chatter about macronutrients. Everyone knows them, and everyone obsesses about them.
How can I get a complete protein? How many carbohydrates should I get in a day? What’s a healthy fat?
There is always something to say about these three macronutrients.
However, there are nutrients who rarely get to join the conversation.
Our micronutrients.
Macronutrients are of course important, and you could say they form the base of our survival, but micronutrients are where our body finds healing, health, and longevity.
In fact, one can’t exist without the other.
What’s a Micronutrient?
Micronutrients refer to vitamins, minerals, and essential amino acids. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and vitamins and minerals ensure specific chemical reactions are performed in the body that impact the breakdown of fats and carbohydrates.
Without them, our body will have a difficult time functioning, and will spiral into disease.
Nutrients are cofactors, which means they’re required for enzyme reactions in the body who run the show.
Presently, statistics show staggering results when it comes to our micronutrient intake.
100% of Americans don’t get enough potassium
94% don’t get enough vitamin D
92% don’t get enough choline
89% are low in vitamin E
67% are low in vitamin K
44% are low in calcium
43% low in vitamin A
42% low in vitamin C
Understanding RDA’s
Naturally, these percentages are based on the nationwide standard on the scale of RDA (recommended daily allowance).
RDA’s are great as a baseline, but they’re based on average, not optimal.
This standard was developed during WW2 to create rations for soldiers. It wasn’t for optimal nutrition, just enough to keep people alive to fight. It didn’t account for gender, age, health status, or someone with a chronic disease who lives a relatively sedentary lifestyle.
All of these factors are important in determining how your body functions, and what daily allowance is right for you.
Especially if you are someone suffering with a chronic disease, your body requires sometimes triple the amount of nutrients than a normal body does to keep it in fighting and healing condition.
The average person may survive a long time with nutrient deficiencies, but you can never thrive.
That’s why you see the common person suffering from a cascade of different ailments, like feeling lethargic all the time, trouble sleeping, acne, eczema, weakness, bloating, chronic inflammation, indigestion, and more, just because they are unaware they have a nutrient deficiency that can be easily remedied.
Why are people so unaware?
When you experience any one of the symptoms listed above, there is a typical band-aid patch for that, that comes in the form of a topical cream, steroid, Pepsin, and any other pharmaceutical that your doctor is required to suggest to you.
Unless you ask for bloodwork, they will typically not order it for you.
For example, we all just went through a global pandemic and what a lot of the research suggests is that those who succumbed to the disease all had the same nutrient deficiency.
Vitamin D.
As noted before 94% of the country is deficient in Vitamin D which affects immune function and is a precursor for diseases like dementia, Alzheimer’s, and cardiovascular disease. All of which are also on the rise in this country.
best way to get vitamin D is to be in the sun
Obesity has also been proven to inhibit vitamin D absorption which is another issue many suffer from in this country.
RDA’s also rely on the average weight of a male and female. Sadly, RDA’s are slow to be updated which dramatically affects the understanding many have on how much micronutrients they may actually need in their diet.
The RDA of magnesium was last updated in 1997 for an average male of 166 pounds and female of 133 pounds.
In 2022, the average body weight for a female is 169 pounds and for a male 196 pounds. Furthering the point on obesity becoming a major problem, and the misinformation on RDA’s.
Recently, the RDA for magnesium was changed because of this body weight increase, however, many vitamins and minerals have yet to be officially increased as well.
Common Deficiencies
A magnesium deficiency has been proven to lead to depression, metabolic syndromes, muscle cramps, PMS, and female health issues.
A B12 deficiency has been proven to lead to cognitive decline, Parkinson’s, tremor syndrome, and anemia.
Folate deficiencies have led to birth defects and trouble with pregnancies.
There are nearly 30 micronutrients discovered and every year that passes, their intake declines and diseases rise.
Why is micronutrient intake declining?
Presently, 60% of the calories Americans eat today come from refined food that are devoid of nutrients and high in calories which is the number 1 cause of nutrient deficiencies.
However, one not everyone knows about is actually the factor of soil.
There has been a change in the biome of our soil that we use to grow crops.
This change is due to the overuse of pesticides, factory farming, and herbicides. This damage is similar to what happens in our gut when we take antibiotics.
So, the plants we eat don’t have the same level of nutrients as they used to.
We would have to eat 8 oranges today, to get the same level of nutrients our grandparents got from a single orange.
This is one of the many reasons why I encourage eating organic and local.
The importance of labs and knowing your levels
If you suffer from a chronic disease, which half of this country does, you need to consider your daily intake of micronutrients as a key component to your healing.
It is important to consider getting labs done to review exactly what you may be deficient in. This will make it 10x easier to correct the deficiency.
At-home testing is on the rise and is a cheaper, more convenient way, to get bloodwork done.
Everlywell is a company that provides cheap, at-home comprehensive blood tests. Checkout their website to learn more and take your health into your own hands.
Once you have the results, here are some great foods and their corresponding micronutrient that you can start incorporating in your diet immediately. Regardless of your results, these foods are extremely nutrient dense and you should still try and have them a few times a week for optimization and their disease-fighting properties.