While the benefits of adequate vitamin D for bone health are known, new research from the University of South Australia (UniSA) has found that this vitamin is also important for cardiovascular health.
Researchers from the UniSA’s Australian Centre for Precision Health at SAHMRI have identified genetic evidence for a role of vitamin D deficiency in causing cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Published in the European Heart Journal, the study shows 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.
Chief investigator, UniSA’s Professor Elina Hyppönen says appreciating the role of vitamin D deficiency for heart health could help reduce the global burden of CVD.
“Severe deficiency is relatively rare, but in settings where this does occur it is very important to be proactive and avoid negative effects on the heart,” says Professor Hyppönen.
“For example, deficiency can be a problem for people living in residential care who may have limited exposure to sun.
“We can also 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 we 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.
“Understanding the connection between low levels of vitamin D and CVD is especially important, given the global prevalence of this deadly condition.
“Our results are exciting as they suggest that if we can raise levels of vitamin D within norms, we should also affect rates of CVD.
“In our study population, by increasing vitamin D-deficient individuals to levels of at least 50nmol/L, we estimate that 4.4% of all CVD cases could have been prevented.”
This large-scale Mendelian study used a new genetic approach that allowed the team to assess how increasing levels can affect CVD risk based on how high the participants actual vitamin D levels were.
The study 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 CVD.
“It is not ethical to recruit people with vitamin D deficiency to a randomised controlled trial and to leave them without treatment for long periods,” says Professor Hyppönen.
“It is exactly this type of difficult setting which demonstrates the power of our genetic approach, given we can show how improving concentrations affects the risk in those most in need, without exposing participants to any harm.
“Those with the lowest concentrations are likely to have the strongest effects, yet a population-wide approach to eradicate vitamin D deficiency could reduce the global burden of CVDs.”
