Since I wrote about the importance of Vitaim D a few weeks ago, some new information has come out.

A report was released this week from researchers in Australia about Vitamin D reducing the risk of all causes of death.  The study was in the Archives of Internal Medicine, about their evaluation of 3,258 men and women scheduled to have a angiogram of their heart arteries.  They found that the people who had below average Vitamin D levels had about twice the risks of dying than those with levels in the highest 25% of the group.

While looking for the report of the Austrlian study, I found another study from a group of reserachers in Boston, that looked at 18,225 men who had no diagnosed heart disease.  This study found that during 10 years of follow-up, the men who were deficient in Vitamin D (15 ng/mL) were about twice as likely to have a heart attack as those considered to have sufficient levels of Vitamin D (30 ng/mL).

It may be coincidence that both studies found a 2:1 effect from high/normal v. low levels of Vitamin D, but there seems to be growing interest and consensus that Vitamin D is important for overall health.  What do you think?

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 6:38 pm and is filed under Clinician-Patient Relationships, Innovation, Nutrition, Public Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.