Free from the sun, vitamin D delivers a natural source for one of the hormones essential to our bodies, especially the bones.
In a new study from the University of South Australia, researchers found when you’re down on this essential nutrient, it’s not only your bones that could suffer but also your cardio health.
They identified genetic evidence for the role of vitamin D deficiency in causing heart disease.
The team used a new genetic approach that allowed the team to assess how increasing levels can affect heart risk based on how high the participants’ actual vitamin D levels were.
They used information from up to 267,980 individuals which allowed the team to provide robust statistical evidence for the link between vitamin D deficiency and heart.
The study showed that people with vitamin D deficiency are more likely to suffer from heart disease and higher blood pressure than those with normal levels of vitamin D.
For participants with the lowest concentrations, the risk of heart disease was more than double that seen for those with sufficient concentrations.
By increasing vitamin D-deficient individuals to levels of at least 50 nmol/L, we estimate that 4.4% of all heart disease cases could have been prevented.
Low concentrations of vitamin D are common in many parts of the world.
Low levels of vitamin D are recorded by an estimated 23% of people in Australia, 24% of people in the US, and 37% of people in Canada.
The team says appreciating the role of vitamin D deficiency in heart health could help reduce the global burden of heart disease.
People can get vitamin D from food, including oily fish, eggs and fortified foods and drinks.
This said, food is unfortunately a relatively poor source of vitamin D, and even an otherwise healthy diet does not typically contain enough.
If people don’t get any vitamin D through the sun, this is one of the rare nutrients for which we sometimes need to take a daily supplement to keep up with the requirements.
If you care about supplements, please read studies about this daily vitamin that is critical to cancer prevention, and findings of why vitamin K is so important for older people.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about how vitamin C could help over 50s retain muscle mass, and results showing that daily vitamin D may protect you from type 2 diabetes.
The study is published in European Heart Journal. One author of the study is Prof Elina Hyppönen.
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