Meta-analysis: Vitamin D levels and risk of heart disease, early death
By Dr. John Cannell
In 1981, Professor Robert Scragg first hypothesized that vitamin D deficiency contributed to heart disease. He used latitudinal, seasonal and altitudinal data to support his theory. Thirty-two years later, we are getting closer to understanding how much truth there is to his theory.
Recently, Dr. Peter Brondum-Jacobsen and colleagues from the Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark studied more than 10,000 men and women, pooling from people that had a vitamin D level drawn in the early 1980s and following patients for 29 years to see who developed heart disease, a heart attack or died.
The average vitamin D level of these patients was 19 ng/ml. The authors found that patients with the lowest vitamin D levels had a 72 percent increased risk for heart disease, a 99 percent increased risk of heart attack, and 88 percent increased risk of early death, and a 122 percent increased risk for fatal heart attack, compared to those with higher levels. After correcting for confounders — factors such as obesity and age that may have obscured the strength of the corrected results — the results remained strong.
The researchers then conducted a meta-analysis, gathering 18 general population studies, including their own, totaling more than 82,000 people. The studies used various definitions of inadequacy.
They found the risk of early death of people with “inadequate levels” was 46 percent greater than those with adequate levels. In this meta-analysis, the highest levels were associated with the lowest risk. Furthermore, they found that countries that fortified food with vitamin D were not exempt from these deaths. That is, food fortification was too low to prevent early deaths.
Remember, this was likely mostly sun-derived vitamin D. It remains an open question if vitamin D supplements will achieve the same affect, although the basic science of how vitamin D works in the cardiovascular sustem make it likely that supplementation studies using an adequate dose will prove vitamin D to be beneficial. Keep your 25(OH)D level at about 50 ng/ml and remember that the sun is your friend.
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