Vitamin D deficiency could kill you.
May 06, 2020
Description
2020 — 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.
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 were related to poor physical activity.
Experts say the results shouldn't be seen as a reason to
start popping vitamin D pills or to spend hours in the sun, which is the
main source for vitamin D.
Vitamin D
deficiency increases the risk of diseases
Low vitamin D levels could reflect age, lack of physical activity and
other lifestyle factors that also affect health, said American Heart
Association spokeswoman Alice Lichtenstein, director of the
Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University.
A trigger protein on the surface of a microbe or food example
(gluten). infection will trigger a immune response that begins to attack a
part of body.
The study led by Austrian researchers 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.
According to one of the vitamin tests they used, there were 307 deaths
in patients with the lowest levels, versus 103 deaths in those with the
highest levels. Counting age, physical activity and other factors, the
researchers calculated that deaths from all causes were about twice as
common in patients in the lowest-level group.
The study's lead
"Now we are beginning to
realize that there is much more into it," he said
Exactly how low
vitamin D levels might contribute to heart problems and deaths from
other illnesses is uncertain, although it is has been shown to help
regulate the body's disease-fighting immune system, he said.
Earlier
this month, the same journal included research led by Harvard scientists
linking low vitamin D levels with heart attacks. And previous research
has linked low vitamin D with high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity,
which all can contribute to heart disease.
The new research "provides
the strongest evidence to date for a link between vitamin D deficiency
and cardiovascular mortality," said Dr. Edward Giovannucci of the
Harvard study of 18,225 men.
Low vitamin D levels also have been
linked with several kinds of cancer and some researchers believe the
vitamin could even be used to help prevent cancer.
It has been
estimated that at least 50 percent of older adults worldwide have low
vitamin D levels, and the problem is also thought to affect large
numbers of younge people. Reasons include reduced outdoor activity, air
pollution combined with age causes a decline in the skin's ability to
produce vitamin D from ultraviolet rays,
.
Overuse of sunscreen lotions has contributed, and say just 40 to
50 minutes daily in the sun without sunscreen is safe and enough to
ensure adequate vitamin D, although there's no consensus on that.
Diet sources include fortified milk, which generally contains 100
international units of vitamin D per cup, and fatty fish ,3 ounces of
canned tuna has 200 units.
CIDPUSA current vitamin D recommendations
are 500 units daily for children and 5000 units for
adults . But some doctors believe these amounts are low.
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