Vitamin D is an essential nutrient that we get through exposure to sunlight and through diet. Without enough Vitamin D, we are at risk for rickets, osteoporosis and bone fractures.
Now, researchers have found that Vitamin D deficiency is also associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease.
J. Brent Muhlestein, a cardiologist at the Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, looked at Vitamin D levels in 41,000 patients who visited the medical center for various health problems. He found that about two-thirds of them had low levels of Vitamin D.
"We found a significant association with future heart attacks and strokes and death in the patients who were low compared to ones who were not low in that blood test," says Muhlestein.
Over the next twelve months, one group took Vitamin D supplements to get up to normal levels. The other group did not. At the end of the year, Muhlestein tested both groups again.
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