Vitamin D, Heart Disease & Death

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Researchers at the University of Kansas have just published a study on Vitamin D levels and their affect on heart disease and overal risk of death. But there was one statistic that was pretty shocking: The amount of the nearly 11,000 people studied who were deficient in vitamin D.

We consider ourselves beyond vitamin deficiencies in the US. We’re just more advanced than that. But the truth of the matter is, despite the overabundance of food – even healthy food – we’re in such a hurry and we eat so much junk that we’re seriously lacking in a lot more than we might think.

The participants in this study, for example, probably thought they were getting enough vitamins. But come to find out, a whopping 70.3% were deficient in Vitamin D. And that, of course, led to more bad news.

Strong Relationship To Heart Disease

“We expected to see that there was a relationship between heart disease and vitamin D deficiency; we were surprised at how strong it was,” Dr. James L. Vacek, a professor of cardiology at the University of Kansas Hospital and Medical Center, told Reuters Health.

“It was so much more profound than we expected.”

So profound, in fact, that being vitamin D deficient nearly doubled the subject’s risk of dying.

But Do Vitamin D Supplements Help?

The good news, however, was that supplementing with vitamin D lowered the risk of death by a whopping 60%.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to a range of illnesses, but few studies have demonstrated the reverse — that supplements could prevent those outcomes.

Vacek and his team reviewed data from 10,899 adults whose vitamin D serum levels had been tested at the University of Kansas Hospital, and found that more than 70 percent of the patients were below 30 nanograms per milliliter, the level many experts consider sufficient for good health.

After taking into account the patients’ medical history, medications and other factors, the cardiologists found that people with deficient levels of vitamin D were more than twice as likely to have diabetes, 40 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and about 30 percent more likely to suffer from cardiomyopathy — a diseased heart muscle — as people without D deficiency.

Overall, those who were deficient in D had a three-fold higher likelihood of dying from any cause than those who weren’t deficient, the researchers reported in the American Journal of Cardiology. Moreover, when the team looked at people who took vitamin D supplements, their risk of death from any cause was about 60 percent lower than the rest of the patients, although the effect was strongest among those who were vitamin D deficient at the time they were tested.

Is Vitamin D Deficiency Really This Widespread?

This isn’t the first study to suggest American’s are low in D. The latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey estimated that 25 percent to 57 percent of adults have insufficient levels of D, and other studies have suggested the number is as high as 70 percent.

So the participants in this study aren’t aberrations. They’re pretty average.

Vacek said he believes so many people are deficient because we should get about 90 percent of our Vitamin D from the sun and only about 10 percent from our food. The human body makes vitamin D in response to skin exposure to sunlight.

A sufficient amount of Vitamin D absorption from the sun would require at least 20 minutes of full-body exposure each day in warmer seasons, and most people aren’t outside enough, Vacek said.

In the northern United States and throughout Canada, experts say the sun isn’t strong enough during the winter months to make sufficient vitamin D, even if the weather was warm enough to expose the skin for a long time.

It means that adults should consider getting their Vitamin D levels checked through a simple blood test, Vacek said, and take vitamin D supplements.

Generally, Vacek recommends that adults take between 1,000 to 2,000 international units (IU) of Vitamin D each day. Other experts have recommended even higher doses, up to as much as 5,000 IU per day.

Our Recommendation:

The Rag-Tag Research Geeks recommend a combination of Calciology™ Calcium Wellness Formula and The Foundation™ Multivitamin. Together, these deliver 3,200 IU of Vitamin D per day.

But this is not our only recommendation. Vitamin D requires certain co-factors to work properly. Find out more on our vitamin D page.

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