Vitamin D, Your Legs & PAD

Here’s something new to add to the growing number of reasons to get adequate amounts of vitamin D: it may help prevent peripheral artery disease (PAD), a condition that causes leg pain and numbness and can interfere with walking.

PAD develops when fatty deposits narrow the arteries in the legs, and affects about eight million Americans. Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York analyzed data from a survey of more than 4,800 adults to compare vitamin D levels with the incidence of PAD.

They found that the higher the levels of the sunshine vitamin, the lower the prevalence of PAD—in fact, the disease was 64 percent more common among study participants with the lowest levels of vitamin D than among those whose vitamin D levels were highest.

The researchers did note that they couldn’t be sure that vitamin D—or the lack of it—is directly responsible for PAD because high levels of the vitamin could simply be an indication of a healthy diet and other beneficial health practices that might be protective against PAD.