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Association Between Vitamin D and Heart Disease If a person can expose his or her unprotected skin to 2 sessions of 15 minutes each of sunlight every week, sufficient amount of Vitamin D would be produced. Otherwise, he or she might need to acquire it from foods or supplements. Some fish, like salmon, tuna and mackerel, and fish liver oils are considered to be the best sources. Other foods such as fortified milk, beef liver, cheese and egg yolks also contain Vitamin D. The main function of Vitamin D is to encourage the absorption and metabolism of calcium and phosphorous for maintenance of healthy bones, and it is also an immune system regulator. But, Vitamin D can benefit people in other ways, too. For instance, radiological experts from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that a form of Vitamin D could be one of the body's main protections against damage from low levels of radiation. Various studies have also shown that the risk of developing cancer is significantly lower for people with adequate levels of Vitamin D compared to those with lower levels. A study of 3000 European men aged between 40 and 79 showed that Vitamin D might play a key role in keeping the brain working well in later life. On the other hand, The Medical College of Georgia in the United States found that Vitamin D is probably associated with maintenance of healthy body weight.
While study showed that Vitamin D could cut the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis in women, the severity and frequency of asthma symptoms, and the likelihood of hospitalizations due to asthma could also be reduced with the help of Vitamin D, according to Harvard Medical School found after monitoring 616 children in Costa Rica. On June 8, 2011, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health found that men who consumed the recommended amount of Vitamin D are less likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke than those who consumed low amount of Vitamin D. The recommended daily amount (RDA) of Vitamin D is 600 IU. In order to evaluate the associations between both dietary and supplemental Vitamin D and cardiovascular disease risk, the study used data from 2 long-term projects, which followed 2 large groups of health professionals in the United States since the 1980s: the Nurses' Health Study (1984–2006) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2006). 118,864 adults (74,272 women and 44,592 men), who were free from cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline, were followed for 2 decades. Among the men, there were about 5,000 new cases of cardiovascular disease during the study period. These cases included heart attack, stroke or cardiovascular death. In the ‘American Journal of Clinical Nutrition’, researchers reported that men who got at least the RDA of Vitamin D were 16 percent less likely to suffer heart disease or stroke than men who consumed less than 100 IU per day. There was no such pattern among women, though. So the observations found suggested that a higher intake of Vitamin D is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease in men but not in women. It was unclear why women did not have similar pattern as men did. The possible reason, according to researchers, could be women might have less active Vitamin D circulating in the blood. Meanwhile, Vitamin D is stored in fat and women typically have a higher percentage of body fat than men do.
The study was purely observational, and the
evidence was not strong enough to prove that Vitamin D could definitely lower
risk of cardiovascular disease. Hence, more research is required to find more
answers from an ongoing randomized trial evaluating whether a high dose of
Vitamin D (2,000 IU per day) could actually reduce the risk of heart disease,
stroke and other chronic diseases.
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