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In just four months, high-doses of vitamin D reduce arterial stiffness in young, overweight/obese, vitamin-deficient, but otherwise still healthy African-Americans, researchers say. Rigid artery walls are an independent predictor of cardiovascular- related disease and death and vitamin D deficiency appears to be a contributor. In what appears to be the first randomized trial of its kind, they found that arterial stiffness was improved by vitamin D supplementation in a dose-response manner in this population, they write in the journal PLOS ONE. Participants taking 4,000 international units -- more than six times the daily 600 IUs the Institute of Medicine currently...