Why Are My Vitamins Low?

The answer might surprise you...

Welcome to the Gut Honest Truth blog where a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner gives you digestible information to tackle your chronic health concerns.

That's me, Katie Morra; and in this blog I'm going to break down why nutrient deficiencies are far more common than most people realize — and why the cause is almost never just "not eating enough vegetables."

And as always, working one-on-one for your specific needs is always our top recommendation, check out our appointment options to get started with one of our licensed health care professionals today.

What if solving some of your most persistent health issues came down to understanding your nutrient status?

When most people hear "nutrient depletion," they picture someone eating fast food every day. But the reality is that nutrient deficiencies affect a much broader population — including people who eat well. The cause goes far deeper than diet alone.

How We Actually Get Nutrients

It starts with food — but it doesn't end there. That food needs to be grown or raised in nutrient-dense conditions, then eaten, digested, and actually absorbed at the cellular level. The best-case scenario is that everything works optimally from start to finish. But there are numerous points along the way where things can fall short.

We lose out on nutrients because of soil quality, how animals are fed, what we eat, cellular health, genetics, gut function, and our ability to actually absorb what we've consumed. As we say at GHT: you are not what you eat. You are what you absorb.

Clinically, we see most nutrient depletions connected to four main drivers: stress, gut health, medications, and soil quality.

1. Stress

Stress is an underlying driver of more health issues than most people realize — including nutrient depletion. The stress response triggers the release of adrenaline and cortisol, which mobilize resources for survival. The problem is that this process burns through critical micronutrients, leaving you depleted over time.

Common nutrients depleted by chronic stress:

• Magnesium — involved in 300+ reactions in the body; supports GABA production which helps regulate stress and anxiety. Deficiency is linked to low mood and depression.

• Zinc — essential for immune function and mood regulation; depleted by elevated cortisol and linked to depression.

• Calcium — necessary for bone health, muscle contraction, nerve conduction, and enzyme activation; depleted as cortisol rises.

• Vitamin C — a key antioxidant that mitigates oxidative stress; directly depleted by high cortisol.

• Iron — carries oxygen throughout the body; stress-related depletion causes fatigue, shortness of breath, and hair thinning.

• B Vitamins (Niacin, B6, B12, Folate) — essential for energy and neurotransmitter production; water-soluble and not stored in the body, meaning there's no reserve to draw from when stress depletes them.

2. Gut Health

Your gut is the primary site of nutrient absorption — and anything that disrupts it has a direct downstream effect on your nutrient status. SIBO, IBS, IBD, dysbiosis, and gut infections all impair the body's ability to break down and absorb nutrients — even when dietary intake looks adequate.

A quick anatomy note: the small intestine is where most vitamins and minerals are absorbed. The bacteria lining your entire digestive tract also play a role — for example, the bacteria in your colon are responsible for producing vitamin K. A disrupted microbiome means compromised nutrient production and absorption.

Low stomach acid is one of the most commonly overlooked contributors here. Without adequate hydrochloric acid, protein isn't properly broken down, minerals aren't properly released from food, and the entire downstream digestive process is compromised.

H. pylori infections in particular are notorious for depleting B12, iron, and vitamin C — three nutrients essential for energy, immunity, and hair health.

3. Medications

One of the most underaddressed topics in conventional healthcare is medication-induced nutrient depletion. Medications change what's happening in the body — and sometimes that means depleting specific nutrients in the process.

Common medication-nutrient depletions:

Birth control — DHEA, folate, magnesium, melatonin, riboflavin, selenium, thiamin, vitamins A, B5, B6, B12, C, zinc, and beneficial gut flora

Acid blockers (PPIs like omeprazole, Prilosec, Nexium) — vitamin A, boron, calcium, chromium, copper, folate, iron, phosphorus, selenium, thiamin, vitamins B12, C, D, E, K, zinc, and gut flora. This is one of the most significant drug-nutrient interactions we see — patients on long-term acid reflux medication are often significantly depleted across multiple nutrients.

Antibiotics — B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, iron, and beneficial gut flora

To look up your specific medication, we recommend using mytavin.com as a starting resource.

4. Soil Quality

The health of the soil our food is grown in directly determines the nutrient density of that food. As demand for agriculture increased, the rate of soil turnover outpaced the ability to replenish nutrients naturally. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur — all essential for plant health — are notably declining in modern soil.

The result: the nutrient density of our food supply is lower than it was decades ago. This holds true even for people eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables. The food looks the same — it just carries less nutritional value than it once did.

This same depletion affects the animals that eat these plants, which means it flows through to the quality of our animal products as well.

What We Do About It at GHT

Understanding your nutrient status requires testing — not guessing. A standard multivitamin won't correct a deficiency if you don't know what you're actually deficient in, or if there's an absorption issue preventing the nutrients from getting into your cells.

At GHT we use advanced micronutrient panels that test nutrient status at the cellular level — both intracellular and extracellular — giving us a true picture of what your body actually has available to work with. From there, we build a targeted repletion protocol based on your specific needs.

The body can't produce hormones, generate energy, or complete digestion properly without the right nutritional tools. Making sure those tools are available is one of the highest-leverage things we can do for overall healing.

Schedule a free discovery call with our team here.