Sunshine vitamin could cut heart disease risk--study

Researchers at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, Salt Lake City, U.S., found that people with less nutrition in their body could incur benefits from vitamin D intake and cut back their risk of not only heart diseases but other ailments too.

Lead study author, Dr. J. Brent Muhlestein, director, cardiovascular research, Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute said, “Vitamin D replacement therapy has long been associated with reducing the risk of fractures and diseases of the bone.”

“But our findings show that vitamin D could have far greater implications in the treatment and reduction of cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions than we previously thought,” added Muhlestein.

Two studies conducted
In the first trial, the research team enrolled 9,400 patients, diagnosed with low vitamin D levels during their first routine visit to the general practitioner (GP).

Though the normal level of vitamin D is considered to be 30 nanograms per milliliter; these patients were diagnosed with 19.3 nanograms per milliliter, signifying that they had quite lower vitamin D levels.

For the examination, half of the subjects were asked to increase their levels of vitamin D up to normal through additional intake, prior to their second visit to the doctor.

In the second study, researchers divided 41,000 patients into three groups with varying vitamin D levels--normal, average and extreme deficiency.

The medical records of the patients were then examined for previous instances of heart disease or stroke.

Results of the study
The first study revealed that unlike the patients with low vitamin D levels, the group with increased vitamin D was at 33 percent lesser risk of having heart attack, 20 percent less probable to develop heart failure and 30 percent less prone to die amid the two visits to the doctor.

It was further revealed that patients with increased vitamin D levels up to 43 nanograms per milliliter had the least risk of heart diseases.

The second study found that patients with acute deficiency of vitamin D were the ones most prone to suffer heart disease or a stroke.

Muhlestein added, “It’s at least a reasonable piece of evidence to add to the hypothesis that low vitamin D is causative of cardiovascular risk and treatment can reduce cardiovascular disease risk.”

The study was presented at the annual meeting of American College of Cardiology.