Wednesday - June 11, 2008
Low Vitamin D Levels May Boost Men's Heart Attack Risk
Findings suggest current dietary requirements need to be increased
Vitamin D deficiency may increase the risk of heart attack in men, says a U.S. study.
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, analyzed medical records and blood samples from 454 men, aged 40 to 75, who had a nonfatal heart attack or fatal heart disease, and compared them to 900 men who had no history of cardiovascular disease.
Men with a vitamin D deficiency (15 nanograms or less per milliliter of blood) had a higher risk of heart attack than those with a sufficient amount of vitamin D (30 nanograms per milliliter of blood or more).
"After additional adjustment for family history of myocardial infarction, body-mass index, alcohol consumption, physical activity, history of diabetes mellitus and hypertension, ethnicity, region, marine omega-3 intake, low- and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels, this relationship remained significant," the study authors wrote.
The findings appear in the June 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
"Vitamin D deficiency has been related to an increasing number of conditions and to total mortality. These results further support an important role for vitamin D in myocardial infarction risk," the researchers concluded.
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