Email this article to a friend

Printable Version

Articles Related to This Article: • Vitamin D Halts Growth of Breast Cancer Tumors • Vitamin D is nutritional key for prevention of breast cancer • Vitamin D prevents breast cancer Support NaturalNews advertisers - Advertise with NaturalNews Nutrition Can Save America! FREE report by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, reveals why nutritional deficiencies are destroying America's health and economy... and how to restore America's future with real food.

(NaturalNews) People with lower blood levels of vitamin D are more likely to die from all causes, researchers have found.

"We took into account 30 different variables - including age, weight, diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, whether they exercise, smoking - and we found that low vitamin D levels, independent of all these other risk factors for heart disease, predicted an increased risk of dying from any other cause. So we found a new risk factor for death," said study author Erin Michos.

Michos and colleagues from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Albert Einstein College of Medicine analyzed vitamin D and mortality data from more than 13,000 adults over the age of 19 who had participated in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANESIII). The NHANESIII participant pool had been carefully selected to give an accurate representation of the general U.S. population, although it might not be representative of other countries.

The vitamin D blood levels of all participants had been tested once between 1988 and 1994. Because the body synthesizes vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight and blood levels consequently tend to be higher in the summer, participants from southern states had their blood taken in the winter, while northern participants had theirs taken in the summer. This was done to ensure similar conditions for assessing overall deficiency.

Participants were divided into four groups, based upon vitamin D status. The researchers then used the National Death Index to determine which participants had died by the year 2000, as well as their cause of death.

A total of 1,807 study participants had died by the year 2000, 777 of them (43 percent) from cardiovascular disease. Among these, 76 percent had died from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The second most common cause of mortality was cancer, accounting for 23 percent of deaths.

The researchers found that participants in the quartile with the lowest vitamin D levels (an average of 17.8 nanograms per liter) were 26 percent more likely to have died than participants in the highest quartile. Altogether, the researchers estimated that vitamin D levels could account for up to 20.6 percent of mortality risk.

Being in the lowest vitamin D quartile was also associated with a 70 percent increase in death rate from cardiovascular causes. This correlation dropped to close to 26 percent when the researchers adjusted for other cardiovascular risk factors, however, and was no longer statistically significant. According to Michos, more research is needed to determine if vitamin D plays a role in heart health.


"We also need to prove if we give additional vitamin D, will it prevent a heart attack?" she said.

Initially, researchers also found a correlation between low vitamin D status and increased cancer mortality. This association quickly vanished when only a few complicating factors were adjusted for, however. No association was found between vitamin D levels and death from infectious diseases.

The researchers admitted that the study could not determine if vitamin D deficiency was actually a cause of early death, or if it was merely a marker for other factors. But they noted that a stronger relationship between vitamin D levels and mortality was seen in participants without cardiovascular disease or risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension or male sex. The researchers interpreted this as evidence "against low vitamin D levels being only a marker of poor general health."

Free registration is required to read the rest of this article...
Enter your email address to continue:  
Your email privacy is 100% protected by NaturalNews. We do not sell, rent or share emails.


Get articles like this delivered to you FREE in our popular email newsletter

Related CounterThink Cartoons:

Related Articles: • Vitamin D Halts Growth of Breast Cancer Tumors • Vitamin D is nutritional key for prevention of breast cancer • Vitamin D prevents breast cancer	Take Action: Support NaturalNews.com Email this article to a friend Share this article on: NewsVine | digg | del.icio.us Permalink to this article: http://www.NaturalNews.com/025660_Vitamin_D_blood_disease.html Reprinting this article: Non-commercial use OK, cite NaturalNews.com with clickable link. Embed article link: (copy HTML code below): <a href = "http://www.NaturalNews.com/025660_Vitamin_D_blood_disease.html">Low Levels of Vitamin D Linked to Higher Death Risk</a>