Too Little Vitamin D Puts Heart at Risk

Too Little Vitamin D Puts Heart at Risk:

"Researchers say a growing body of evidence suggests that vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of heart disease and is linked to other, well-known heart disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.

For example, several large studies have shown that people with low vitamin D levels were twice as likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or other heart-related event during follow-up, compared with those with higher vitamin D levels.

'Vitamin D deficiency is an unrecognized, emerging cardiovascular risk factor, which should be screened for and treated,' says researcher James H. O'Keefe, MD, director of preventive cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Mo., in a news release. 'Vitamin D is easy to assess, and supplementation is simple, safe and inexpensive.'"