Syndicated Story suggests those with low vitamin D levels are twice as likely to die in eight years.
An internationally syndicated news story touting ‘the sunshine vitamin’ hit newspapers and web sites across North America on Monday.
“New research linking low vitamin D levels with deaths from heart disease and other causes bolsters mounting evidence about the ‘sunshine’ vitamin’s role in good health,” the Associated Press wrote in an internationally syndicated story on Monday.
“Patients with the lowest blood levels of vitamin D were about two times more likely to die from any cause during the next eight years than those with the highest levels, the study found. The link with heart-related deaths was particularly strong in those with low vitamin D levels.”
The study — which was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine this week — is the latest to grab attention in the medical community. Now researchers are saying publicly that the vitamin D message has become overwhelming.
“This is something that should not be ignored,” American Heart Association spokeswoman Alice Lichtenstein told the Associated Press.
According to the AP report the new study involved 3,258 men and women in southwest Germany. “Participants were aged 62 on average, most with heart disease, whose vitamin D levels were checked in weekly blood tests. During roughly eight years of follow-up, 737 died, including 463 from heart-related problems,” AP reported.
