Which Deficiency Can Cause Dark Circles Under Eyes?

Waking up to dark circles under your eyes is not uncommon. However, unless you are genetically predisposed to pesky under-eye darkness, the circles could be caused by something else, like a nutrient deficiency. 

In developed nations, nutrient deficiencies are very rare. Given the level of access we have to a wide variety of foods and the advent of fortified foods, vitamin deficiencies are almost extinct. However, lifestyle choices, underlying illness, and even stress can cause a person to experience a vitamin deficiency. 

We’ll explore which vitamin and nutrient deficiencies could lead to dark under-eye circles and how you can correct them. We’ll also discuss a newly discovered nutrient deficiency that affects nearly one in three people around the globe, how to find out if you are deficient, and what to do if you are. 

What Are Vitamin Deficiencies?

Vitamins and minerals are required for every process in the human body. Our bodies can make some of them on their own, but others are essential. Essential means we have to have them to thrive, but our bodies can’t make them. We must get essential vitamins and minerals from our diet or supplements. 

The body needs a specific amount of each nutrient. When those amounts are not met, we become deficient in that particular nutrient. Deficiencies can range in severity. 

For instance, if you are deficient in a B vitamin, you may notice a lack of energy. If you are severely deficient in calcium or vitamin D, you may develop a condition known as rickets. Most vitamin deficiencies are easily treated with dietary adjustments or supplementation. This is why it’s very rare that you hear of anyone developing rickets or scurvy (a deficiency in vitamin C). 

Still, underlying illness, stress, and extreme diets can lead to nutrient deficiencies. If you begin to notice dark circles under your eyes that can’t be explained, you could be suffering from a deficiency. 

Vitamins Deficiencies That Cause Dark Circles

Those dark circles could mean you didn’t get enough sleep last night, but if you regularly hit your sleep goal and still wake up to dark circles, they could indicate a deeper issue. Dark circles look like areas of blue or purple color beneath the eyes. 

The most common vitamin deficiencies associated with dark circles are vitamin K, vitamin B12, vitamin C, and iron.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K is an essential vitamin that promotes proper blood clotting and keeps blood vessels healthy. If you are deficient in vitamin K, the tiny blood vessels that reside beneath your eyes may weaken and leak blood into the surrounding tissue. This tissue could pool beneath the eyes while you sleep, causing your under-eye area to look dark when you wake up. 

Vitamin B12

B vitamins are essential vitamins that have numerous functions in the body. Vitamin B12 is essential for the health of red blood cells. 

Low levels of vitamin B12 can lead to increased skin pigmentation, which may appear in the form of darkness beneath the eyes. Vitamin B12 also plays a role in the health of skin cells. If there’s a deficiency, skin cell turnover could slow, which could lead to dull, darker-looking skin under the eyes. 

Vitamin C

If you remember studying scurvy, you remember studying vitamin C deficiency. Scurvy is extremely rare (almost non-existent) due to fortified foods, juices, and access to vitamin C-rich foods. However, underlying medical conditions or extreme diets could lead to a deficiency in vitamin C. 

Dark circles aren’t necessarily a primary characteristic of vitamin C deficiency, but increasing your vitamin C could help you reduce the appearance of those pesky dark circles. Vitamin C helps support collagen production, which can lead to thicker, fuller skin beneath the eyes. 

Iron

Iron-deficient anemia can lead to unpleasant symptoms that include dark circles beneath the eyes. Usually, a person who is iron deficient will have other symptoms, like fatigue, shortness of breath, dizziness, and pale skin. The pale skin associated with iron-deficient anemia helps explain why a person might also develop dark circles beneath the eyes. 

Remember that the skin beneath the eyes is extremely thin. This means that the blood vessels beneath the skin are easier to see. If a person’s skin becomes extremely pale, the bluish-purple blood in blood vessels beneath the eyes will appear more prominent. 

Addressing underlying conditions that could be causing a vitamin or mineral deficiency usually helps correct the deficiency itself. 

What Causes Vitamin Deficiencies?

Vitamin deficiencies today usually occur due to lifestyle habits or underlying illness rather than the inability to get the foods that contain the vitamins and minerals that are needed. 

Some causes include: 

• Extreme dieting or eating disorders
• Restrictive diets that eliminate entire food groups 
• Long-term alcohol misuse
• Weight loss surgery
• Medical conditions that affect how you absorb nutrients (Crohn’s or Celiac disease)
• Some medications 

Symptoms of a vitamin or nutrient deficiency can vary. Generally, symptoms can include but are not limited to:

• Feeling tired or fatigued
• Mental confusion
• Dizziness
• Weak muscles and sore joints
• Changes in the skin and nails (brittle nails, dry hair)

The only way to find out if you are deficient in a key nutrient is to have your healthcare provider perform a blood test. Once a blood test confirms a deficiency, you can work with your doctor to understand the underlying cause and address it to correct the deficiency. 

While your dark circles might be caused by a dietary deficiency, it’s more likely they are the result of a lack of sleep or even your genetics. There is, however, one nutrient deficiency that is rampant and can lead to problems much more concerning than dark circles. 

Understanding Cellular Fragility Syndrome

Over the past five years, researchers studying longevity in bottlenose dolphins discovered a new essential fatty acid, the first to have been discovered in almost 100 years. Joining omega-3 ALA and omega-6 LA is pentadecanoic acid, or C15:0 for short. 

C15:0 is an odd-chain, saturated fatty acid that was present in high levels in populations of dolphins with fewer occurrences of age-related illness than in populations of dolphins with lower levels. As it turns out, C15:0 had these same age-preserving effects on human cells. 

Confirmation as Essential

Since this discovery, 100+ peer-reviewed studies supporting the benefits of C15:0 have been published in the peer-reviewed literature. Multiple research teams have confirmed that C15:0 is indeed essential to our bodies. 

As an essential fatty acid, C15:0 is critical for our bodies as it actively repairs, restores, and revitalizes our long-term health at the cellular level by:*

• Strengthening our cell membranes (and us) against age-related breakdown.
  
  
• Repairing mitochondrial function, which keeps our body’s energy-producers going.
  
  
• Naturally activating receptors (including PPARs and AMPK) that regulate our metabolism, immunity, mood, sleep, and appetite.
  
  
• Naturally inhibiting damaging pathways (including mTOR and JAK-STAT) as a means to support longevity.

Our bodies need C15:0 to thrive, but most of us have C15:0 levels that are so low they are classified as deficient. 

Cellular Fragility Syndrome: The C15:0 Deficiency

The same team of researchers who discovered C15:0 continued their research, especially as it pertained to how the body reacts without it. What they found was the first nutritional deficiency syndrome to have been discovered in 75 years. 

Cellular Fragility Syndrome begins with low C15:0 levels (considered less than 0.2% of the total fatty acids in our cell membranes) and leads to fragile cells that are susceptible to lipid peroxidation and ferroptosis, a form of cell death discovered by scientists at Columbia University in 2012. 

Ferroptosis has been directly linked to accelerated aging, the onset and progression of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, and NAFLD. Until now, we’ve been unable to explain the mechanisms by which ferroptosis occurs. 

The discovery of the causation link between low C15:0 levels and ferroptosis means we can potentially reverse this condition and reduce the risk a person has of developing these corresponding illnesses.

How Much C15:0 Do You Need?

Optimal levels of C15:0 are within 0.2% and 0.4% of a person’s total fatty acid count. Interestingly, residents in the Blue Zone of Sardinia, Italy (where there are more centenarians per capita than any other place in the world) have C15:0 levels that are about three times higher, measuring about 0.68%. 

This is likely due to the consumption of high C15:0-content cheese made from local, grazing, mountainous goats. The takeaway is that higher levels of C15:0 can strengthen our cells and slow cellular aging.

Am I Deficient?

You may not know if you are deficient in C15:0. Like many nutrient deficiencies, the symptoms of low C15:0 may not be noticeable until you have developed a secondary illness from the deficiency (like unregulated blood sugar or NAFLD). To find out if you are deficient, you’ll need a blood test. 

You can ask your healthcare provider to perform a C15:0 test or fatty acid panel, or you can order a quick, easy-to-use, at-home test here. This finger-prick test is delivered to your door and will provide you with your total fatty acid count quickly and efficiently. 

If you find out you are deficient, there’s good news: fatty15 can reverse Cellular Fragility Syndrome with just one capsule per day.

Fatty15: The C15:0 Solution

Increasing your intake of C15:0-rich foods may not be the ideal solution for fixing your C15:0 deficiency. While foods are generally a great way to fix dietary deficiencies, there are a few reasons why a supplement may be a better option to increase our C15:0 levels over consuming C15:0-rich foods. 

First, C15:0 is only found in trace amounts in whole dairy products like whole milk and full-fat butter. You’d have to consume an excessive amount of these foods to get the adequate amount of C15:0 your body needs. 

This is problematic because:

• Whole-fat dairy is filled with excess calories and sugar from lactose. It would be impossible to maintain a healthy weight while consuming the calories and sugar from the dairy products you’d need to eat to boost your C15:0 levels.
  
  
• Whole-fat dairy contains more “bad” fat than good. While C15:0 is a good fat, whole-fat dairy contains high levels of bad, even-chain saturated fat that are continually associated with poor health outcomes.
  
  
• In whole-fat dairy, C15:0 is attached to triglycerides which must be broken down before the C15:0 is in free fatty acid form. This is an additional step that makes the absorption of C15:0 less efficient.
  
  
• Whole-fat dairy isn’t vegan-friendly. If you are avoiding animal products, you won’t want to consume whole milk or full-fat butter to get your necessary C15:0.

The solution is fatty15, the first and only supplement that contains the pure, vegan-friendly version of C15:0 known as FA15™. This pure supplement is already in free fatty acid form and ready to absorb. 

At just one calorie per daily dose, it doesn’t contain any unhealthy fats or additional sugars. Lastly, there’s no cow involvement. You get everything you want and nothing you don’t. 

Brighten Up With Fatty15

Dark circles could be due to a vitamin deficiency, although it is more likely you need a good night’s sleep. If you’re concerned about nutrient deficiencies, consider supplementing your diet with a C15:0 supplement like fatty15. 

Cellular Fragility Syndrome can cause you to age faster than you should, and one fatty15 per day can prevent this nutritional deficiency and slow the cellular aging process, allowing you to live healthier for longer. 

Sources:

Study of Causative Factors and Clinical Patterns of Periorbital Pigmentation | PMC

Efficacy of dietary odd-chain saturated fatty acid pentadecanoic acid parallels broad associated health benefits in humans: could it be essential? | Scientific Reports

Dietary pentadecanoic acid supplementation at weaning in essential fatty acid-deficient rats shed light on the new family of odd-chain n-8 PUFAs | ScienceDirect

The Cellular Stability Hypothesis: Evidence of Ferroptosis and Accelerated Aging-Associated Diseases as Newly Identified Nutritional Pentadecanoic Acid (C15:0) Deficiency Syndrome