Posted on 04/20/2008 7:37:31 AM PDT by blam
Vitamin D May Protect Against Peripheral Artery Disease
People obtain vitamin D by making it themselves (through skin exposure to sunlight), by ingesting foods such as fish and fortified dairy products that contain vitamin D, or by taking dietary supplements. (Credit: iStockphoto/Nikolay Suslov)
ScienceDaily (Apr. 20, 2008) — People with low vitamin D levels may face an increased risk for peripheral artery disease (PAD), according to researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.
PAD is a common disease that occurs when arteries in the legs become narrowed by fatty deposits, causing pain and numbness and impairing the ability to walk. PAD affects about eight million Americans and is associated with significant disease and death, according to the American Heart Association.
People obtain vitamin D by making it themselves (through skin exposure to sunlight), by ingesting foods such as fish and fortified dairy products that contain vitamin D, or by taking dietary supplements. Adequate vitamin D levels are necessary for bone health, but scientists are only beginning to explore vitamin D's connection to cardiovascular disease.
"We know that in mice, vitamin D regulates one of the hormone systems that affects blood pressure," said Dr. Michal Melamed, lead author of the study and assistant professor in the departments of Medicine and Epidemiology & Population Health at Einstein. "Since cells in the blood vessels have receptors for vitamin D, it may directly affect the vessels, although this has not been fully worked out."
To see whether vitamin D might influence PAD, Dr. Melamed and colleagues analyzed data from a national survey measuring vitamin D levels in the blood of 4,839 U.S. adults. The survey tested these people using the ankle-brachial index, a screening tool for PAD that measures blood flow to the legs. Also measured were other risk factors for PAD such as cholesterol levels, blood pressure and presence of diabetes.
The researchers found that higher levels of vitamin D were associated with a lower prevalence of PAD. Among individuals with the highest vitamin D levels --more than 29.2 nanogram per milliliter (ng/mL) -- only 3.7 percent had PAD. Among those with the lowest vitamin D levels -- less than 17.8 ng/mL -- 8.1 percent had PAD.
When the researchers adjusted for age, sex, race and co-existing health problems, they found that PAD was 64 percent more common in the group with the lowest vitamin D levels compared with the group with the highest levels. For each 10 ng/mL drop in vitamin D level, the risk for PAD increased by 29 percent.
While these findings suggest a role for vitamin D in preventing PAD, Dr. Melamed cautions that they don't necessarily show that vitamin D truly deserves the credit. It's possible, she says, that vitamin D levels are a marker for other health practices such as eating a healthy diet. She notes that proving a cause-and-effect relationship between vitamin D and protection against PAD will require a large randomized clinical trial in which some people receive vitamin D supplementation while others do not.
The scientists reported their findings at the American Heart Association's Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Annual Conference 2008. Other researchers involved in the study were Dr. Paul Muntner at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Dr. Paolo Raggi at Emory University School of Medicine.
Dr. Melamed's research was funded by the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disease of the National Institutes of Health.
Adapted from materials provided by Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
I live close to Auburn.
After this spring freeze, I’m wondering if we’re in for a scorcher of a summer.
Honestly!
Whenever you would ask my mom why she didn’t drink Milk, she would tell you that beer is better for you.
Not kidding, it’s better for men’s prostate. Truly. Milk is bad, bad, bad.
Vitamin H. Is that anything like Preparation H?
If you have too many of them you might need Preparation H
We moved to Washington in the fall of 1990, the next year we had the last of many winter snow storms in March, that left us without electricity for three days. We never wore short sleeves the whole summer. It was cold and wet and the mosquitoes were terrible.
Yes, blood tests are important because there are a couple of bad things that can happen with too much D3. Not much of a danger, but still . . .
I agree that vitamin D can be hazardous to health. After all, look at what happens to calves. They wind up as steak on someone's plate. That's what vitamin D does.
I agree!
However the vitamin in beer does no harm.
Your heart is in the right place, but you've got the wrong supplement. Recent studies have shown that it's a phosphorous problem, not vitamin D or sunshine, a discussion on this page refers to the Harvard Medical study:
A paper published in March 2007 by Demay, Sabbagh and Carpenter Calcium and vitamin d: what is known about the effects on growing bone, should finally put the vitamin-D deficiency rickets myth to bed. The Demay group found that the metabolic cause of rickets is hypophosphatemia.This cause has been discussed since this 1857 paper, which suggests it was adulteration of flour with alum, that made the phosphorous in the flour indigestible that cause the rickets problem in London. Blaming the problem on VitD let the bakers off the hook.
I think you are way off the mark here, Vitamin D in quantity is deadly, and is (or was) used as rat poison. The problem with it is that there is no antidote. See: Vitamin D as a Rodent Control Or: Nearly-Dr Ferox: Rat Poison
Old rat poisons were made of cholecalciferol, which is essentially the same as good ol’ Vitamin D, there’s just lots more of it. It causes the body to retain calcium, but too much! Soft tissues become mineralised and non functional, including the heart, arterioles and the kidneys. Acute renal failure is usually the cause of death, and there’s no antidote or treatment once the poison is in the animal’s system, or the soft tissues are affected.
The danger is small; overdose is extremely rare. I’m doing this under the care of a DO.
http://www.level1diet.com/vitamin-d-nutritional-supplement-health-benefits.html
Well, good luck with that (and no sarcasm intended). I'm under the care of a Dr, and going the opposite way, reducing my D to a minimum. So far the diabetes is gone, and most of the other problems I've had with long term auto-immune (sarcoid) are greatly reduced.
The Truth About Vitamin D: Fourteen Reasons Why Misunderstanding Endures
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