Vitamin D Linked To Heart Health

Low levels of vitamin D may not only affect your bones but may also affect your cardio health and increase the risk of heart diseases.

Vitamin D is a natural source of hormones that are vital to our bodies, specifically the bones. However, a study at the University of South Australia states that low vitamin D could not only affect your bones but also your cardio health, as published in European Heart Journal.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are one of the leading causes of death globally, costing the lives of 17.9 million per year. It accounts for 1 in 4 deaths in Australia along with five billion dollars of Australian economy consumption annually.

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‘New study finds that people with vitamin D deficiency have twice the risk of heart disease and higher blood pressure, as compared to those with normal levels of vitamin D.’

In addition, vitamin D deficiency is recorded by an estimated 23% of people in Australia, 24% of people in the US, and 37% of people in Canada.

Vitamin D and Heart Health

The large-scale Mendelian study utilized information from up to 267,980 individuals to establish the connection between CVD risk and vitamin D levels. The study team has now discovered the genetic evidence for the role of vitamin D deficiency in cardiovascular disease.

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“Severe deficiency is relatively rare, but in settings where this does occur it is very important to be proactive and avoid negative effects on the heart. For example, deficiency can be a problem for people living in residential care who may have limited exposure to sun. Understanding the connection between low levels of vitamin D and CVD is especially important, given the global prevalence of this deadly condition,” says Chief investigator, UniSA’s Prof Elina Hyppönen.

It is found that people with vitamin D deficiency have twice the risk of heart disease and higher blood pressure, as compared to those with normal levels of vitamin D.

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Vitamin D supplementation does not have any beneficial effects on muscle function, strength, or mass. At the same time, it also has harmful effects on muscle health.

“Our results are exciting as they suggest that if we can raise levels of vitamin D within norms, we should also affect rates of CVD. In our study population, by increasing vitamin D-deficient individuals to levels of at least 50 nmol/L, we estimate that 4.4 per cent of all CVD cases could have been prevented,” says Hyppönen.

Source-Medindia