Vitamin D & Heart Attacks: Taking Vitamin D Supplements May Decrease Heart Attack Risk Heart Health Nutrition Men's Health Women's Health Family Health

Take vitamin D supplements? A recent study presented at the American Heart Association scientific session (abstract 4382525) has shown that vitamin D supplementation was associated with a 52 percent lower risk of heart attack over four years.

Researchers looked out 630 adults with acute angina. About half of the subjects had a previous heart attack. Half of them had their vitamin D levels checked and treated to keep them within the 40 to 80 ng/ml level.

The findings were striking: 85 percent of the people tested were found to have low vitamin D levels. Those treated with vitamin D had a profound 52 percent lower risk of heart attack.

Inadequate vitamin D is one of the most important nutritional deficiencies. The common misguided medical advice today is to avoid sunshine, which is a major source of vitamin D. Vitamin D is critical for balancing inflammation and immunity. The appropriate advice should be to avoid sunburn, not sunshine.

Studies associating vitamin D deficiency with specific health conditions have a major problem. This is because vitamin D levels go down with inflammation, infections and other severe health conditions. So, the low vitamin D levels do not necessarily indicate deficiency, or that treatment is going to help the illness. This requires actual treatment studies rather than simply looking for associations.

This is what makes the study so powerful. It was a randomized prospective study where they treated one group and not the other. Showing that supplementing vitamin D was what lowered heart attack risk. For those with a previous heart attack, it lowered the risk of a second heart attack by over 50 percent.

About 800,000 Americans have a heart attack every year. Approximately one in five Americans who have a heart attack will have a second one within five years. Ten to 20 plus percent of those will die from their second heart attack. This conservatively translates to about 25,000 lives a year that could be saved from simply supplementing with vitamin D.

The study also raises the question of whether current RDAs are adequate – let alone optimal. I consider nutritional support and prudent vitamin supplementation to be a cornerstone of good health, especially today when much of our food supply is nutritionally depleted. Soil degradation from industrial farming is an environmental factor that affects us all, and which physicians worldwide need to address. 

Hiding from the sun and despoiling the earth are putting us on a fast track to global poor health – even in the most scientifically advanced countries.

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