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Vitamin-D Deficiency in Youngsters Linked to Cardiovascular Disease!
 

While numerous studies have linked Vitamin-D deficiency to increased health risk in American adults, there were few studies looking at whether deficiency in Vitamin-D would lead to increased cardiovascular disease in children.

Cardiovascular disease, also known as heart and circulatory disease, refers to all diseases that affect the heart or blood vessels (arteries and veins). It includes conditions such as coronary heart disease (angina and heart attack) and stroke.

According to 2 studies revealed in August 2009, most American youngsters were deficient in Vitamin-D and such deficiency could raise their risk of developing cardiovascular disease including stroke and heart attack.

Incidentally, both studies were published simultaneously in the August 3, 2009 online edition of Pediatrics, utilizing same data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States for the year between 2001 and 2004. The initiation of both studies was based on the belief that there is a lack of information on the possible effects of insufficient intake of Vitamin-D on the risk of cardiovascular disease in young people.

In one of the studies, researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx looked at the overall incidence of low blood levels of Vitamin-D among young Americans aged between 1 and 21 in the survey.

They found that among the youngsters, 9 percent (or 7.6 million) were Vitamin-D deficient with blood levels below 15 nanograms per milliliter, and 61 percent (or 50.8 million) were Vitamin-D insufficient, with levels between 15 nanograms and 29 nanograms per milliliter.

Though there is no formal definition of Vitamin-D deficiency, it appears that there is a consensus among many experts that a level of 30 nanograms per milliliter of blood is desirable.

Findings from the study indicated that children with the lowest Vitamin-D levels were at a higher risk of getting high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels and low blood levels of HDL (high density lipoprotein) or the so-called good cholesterol.

The researchers were unsure that low levels of Vitamin-D early in life would actually lead to health risks later in the adult years. However, if a youngster has hypertension (high blood pressure) at the age of 20, he or she would certainly have to deal with the disease for the rest of the life.

As the researchers were rather shock to learn about the high incidence of Vitamin-D deficiency, they waited for 6 months for confirmation from other studies.

In the other study, researchers from Johns Hopkins University performed a detailed cross-sectional analysis of data on 3,577 adolescents. They found an average Vitamin-D blood level of 24.8 nanograms per milliliter, with the average level of 15.5 nanograms per milliliter in blacks, 21.5 in Mexican Americans and 28 in whites.

Furthermore, the results obtained also showed that 25 percent of youngsters with the lowest levels of Vitamin-D were 2.36 times more likely to have high blood pressure, 54 percent more likely to have low HDL cholesterol levels, 2.54 times more likely to have elevated blood sugar levels and 3.88 times more likely to have metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a combination of medical disorders including obesity, high blood fats and high blood pressure that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Such findings certainly showed that there is a clear association between deficiency in Vitamin-D and cardiovascular risk. However, parents need not unduly panic. As explained by the researchers, the findings were observational and they insisted that additional studies are still required to confirm the results.

The researchers also advised parents not to buy supplements for their kids to achieve the necessary intake of Vitamin-D, which is currently set at 200 International Units a day for everyone up to the age of 50. In fact, there are many other ways that people can have adequate Vitamin-D intake, for example, 15 minutes a day of exposure to sunlight, or consuming fortified milk, bread and other wheat products, etc.

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