If you’re here, then you probably Google’d: vitamin d and the heart.
‘An Exciting New Approach’
Serum 25(OH)D levels are an established marker for vitamin D status. To test their hypothesis, the researchers employed a specific analytical method to analyze data from UK Biobank — a large prospective cohort study of the United Kingdom’s population aged 37–73 years. They filled out questionnaires providing broad information on health and lifestyle at baseline and provided blood samples for biomarker and genetic assays.
What Do The Results Say?
The researchers compared the results with those of a control group without a CVD diagnosis. The research team also conducted a secondary analysis to examine the association of 25(OH)D concentration levels with blood pressure. Further analysis revealed that the individuals with serum 25(OH)D at 25 nmol/l had 11% higher risk of CVD than those with concentrations of 50 nmol/l.
However, there appeared to be a reduction in the likelihood of CVD occurrence with higher concentration values. Scientists call this phenomenon a nonlinear association, where a change in the value of one entity does not always correspond with a constant change in the value of the other entity.
What Do The Experts Think?
To fully understand the implication of the results, MNT reached out to experts. He observed that there has long been confusion as to whether to check vitamin D levels when assessing cardiovascular risk and what to do with the information after obtaining the results, “[However, now], this study establishes that it is worthwhile to check vitamin D levels for the purpose of assessing cardiovascular risk and, moreover, supplementing vitamin D for those who are most deficient.”.
Meet The Expert
Her work for the NHS focused on weight management and community programmes for the prevention of cardiovascular disease.
Why We Need Vitamin D
A lack of vitamin D can cause bone problems such as rickets (which causes bowed legs) in children and muscle weakness and painful or tender bones in adults. How we make vitamin D
We get a little vitamin D from food, but we get most of it from sunlight. The sun acts on chemicals under the skin and helps turn them into vitamin D. In winter in the UK, we don’t get enough of the right type of sunlight to make enough vitamin D.
Not getting enough vitamin D
We don’t need vitamin D from food or sunlight every day.