Sun up
Men with low concentrations of vitamin D have higher risk of heart attack
By Nathan Seppa
The good news just keeps on coming for vitamin D. A new study of men finds that getting plenty of vitamin D seems to lessen the risk of having a heart attack.
Researchers tracked the effect of vitamin D levels in blood by testing blood samples collected from 1993 to 1995 from more than 18,000 men who were part of a long-term study of physicians. Researchers then monitored these men for 10 years. By analyzing the initial blood vitamin D readings with the men’s subsequent health history, researchers were able to assess whether vitamin D status affected heart attack risk.
The researchers found that 454 men had heart attacks during the 10-year period that followed. Men with the least vitamin D were twice as likely to have a heart attack as men with the most, says Edward Giovannucci of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. He and his colleagues report the data in the June 9 Archives of Internal Medicine.
The finding stood up even after the researchers accounted for differences between the groups in age, race, family history of heart attacks, weight, alcohol consumption, physical activity, history of diabetes, high blood pressure, ethnicity, fish consumption, cholesterol, triglyceride levels and the region in which they lived.