Heart Healthy Vitamin D

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A lack of vitamin D can cause bone and muscle weakness, but now researchers say it may also affect your heart health.

A growing body of evidence links vitamin D deficiency to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), leading to common CVD risk factors like hypertension, obesity, diabetes, stroke and congestive heart failure.

Up to half of adults and 30 percent of children and teenagers across the nation are estimated to be vitamin D deficient. The condition is more prevalent than once thought. Sun exposure can supply most of the body’s vitamin D requirements, but staying indoors and using sunscreen can prevent 99 percent of the body’s vitamin D production.

“We are outside less than we used to be, and older adults and people who are overweight or obese are less efficient at making vitamin D in response to sunlight,” James H. O’Keefe, M.D., a cardiologist and director of Preventive Cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., was quoted as saying.

Experts are pressing for better screening and treatment of patients with low vitamin D levels, especially those with CVD risk factors.

“Vitamin D deficiency is an unrecognized, emerging cardiovascular risk factor, which should be screened for and treated,” Dr. O’Keefe explained. “Vitamin D is easy to assess, and supplementation is simple, safe and inexpensive.”

Dr. O’Keefe calls for studies to assess vitamin D’s role in reducing heart disease and death.

SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), 2008