‘Sunshine vitamin’ essential for maintaining healthy heart too

By Georgia Lambert via SWNS

Vitamin D not only boosts bone health but is also essential for maintaining a healthy heart, according to a new study.

Taking the right dose of the "sunshine vitamin" could prevent cardiovascular disease, say scientists.

Free from the sun, vitamin D delivers a natural source of nutrients to the body but when you don't get enough of this vital vitamin, Australian researchers have warned that your cardio health could suffer the consequences.

In the first study of its kind, researchers from the University of South Australia's Australian Centre for Precision Health have identified genetic evidence for a deficiency in vitamin D causing cardiovascular disease.

The study revealed that people who are lacking from the vitamin are more likely to suffer from heart disease and higher blood pressure than those with normal levels of vitamin D.

Whatsmore, the participants in the study who had the lowest concentrations of the sunshine vitamin, doubled their chances of heart disease.

Globally, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death worldwide, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives per year.

According to the British Heart Foundation, heart and circulatory diseases cause a quarter of all deaths in the UK, racking up a staggering 160,000 deaths each year.

Having little exposure to vitamin D is common in many parts of the world, including the UK, where, according to the UK Biobank which was used by the researchers in the study, 55 percent of participants had low levels of the vitamin, and a further 13 percent had a severe deficiency.

While low levels of vitamin D were recorded by approximately 23 percent of Australians, 24 percent of Americans were deficient, and 37 percent of Canadians were gasping for a dose.

Professor Elina Hyppönen, the chief investigator from UniSA explained that appreciating the role that vitamin D has on heart health could help reduce the "global burden of cardiovascular disease".

“Severe deficiency is relatively rare, but in settings where this does occur it is very important to be proactive and avoid negative effects on the heart," she said.

"For example, deficiency can be a problem for people living in residential care who may have limited exposure to sun."

Hyppönen went on to explain that relying on a healthy diet isn't enough, and in most cases, taking supplements is needed.

"We can also get vitamin D from food, including oily fish, eggs, and fortified foods and drinks. This said, food is, unfortunately, a relatively poor source of vitamin D, and even an otherwise healthy diet does not typically contain enough," she said.

“If we don’t get any vitamin D through the sun, this is one of the rare nutrients for which we sometimes need to take a daily supplement to keep up with the requirements.

“Understanding the connection between low levels of vitamin D and CVD is especially important, given the global prevalence of this deadly condition."

In the study, Hyppönen and her team were able to uncover results that are deemed "exciting."

“Our results are exciting as they suggest that if we can raise levels of vitamin D within norms, we should also affect rates of CVD," she said.

In the study, the researchers were able to estimate that by increasing vitamin D-deficient levels of at least 50 nmol/L, 4.4 percent of all CVD cases could have been prevented.

This large-scale study used a new genetic approach that allowed the team to assess how increasing levels can affect a person's CVD risk, based on how high their vitamin D levels were.

The study used information from 267,980 individuals, which allowed the team to provide hard evidence which proved the link between a vitamin D deficiency and CVD.

When speaking about the study, Hyppönen said: “It is not ethical to recruit people with vitamin D deficiency to a randomized controlled trial and to leave them without treatment for long periods.

“It is exactly this type of difficult setting which demonstrates the power of our genetic approach, given we can show how improving concentrations affects the risk in those most in need, without exposing participants to any harm.

“Those with the lowest concentrations are likely to have the strongest effects, yet a population-wide approach to eradicate vitamin D deficiency could reduce the global burden of CVDs.”

The study's findings were published in the European Heart Journal.