Study: Low Vitamin D May Spell Risk For Cardiovascular Disease

Another vitamin D study has found a positive link between the sunshine vitamin and health. Published in the January issue of Circulation, an American Heart Association journal, the study found that people with low vitamin D levels face an elevated risk for heart attack, heart failure and stroke, which suggests that the vitamin may protect against cardiovascular disease.

Researchers also found that the elevated risk was particularly acute among those with high blood pressure.

The study was led by Thomas Wang, M.D., of Harvard Medical School in Boston and followed 1,739 people—average age of 59—for 5 years, taking blood samples to gauge vitamin D levels.

Those with low vitamin D levels had about a 60 percent higher risk of a cardiovascular event like heart attack, heart failure or stroke compared to those with higher levels, even with well-known cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure taken into account.

The risk for heart attack, heart failure or stroke was double in people with both high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, and vitamin D deficiency, the researchers say.

“There is a growing body of experimental literature suggesting that vitamin D may have some actions on the heart and major blood levels,” Wang says. “As a corollary, the lack of vitamin D may be associated with the development of cardiac abnormalities.”

Wang adds that the findings are intriguing but that it is too early to say that taking vitamin D supplements would lower one's risk for heart disease or stroke, and premature to recommend that people take such supplements for that purpose.

The body makes vitamin D when skin is exposed to sunlight, and experts say exposure to 10 to 15 minutes of sunshine three times weekly is enough to produce necessary vitamin D levels.