People with the highest average levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-(OH)D) – the non-active storage form of the vitamin – had a cancer-specific mortality half that of people with the lowest average levels, says a new study published in the British Journal of Cancer. Furthermore, high levels of the vitamin were associated with an overall mortality level 40 per cent lower than people with the lowest average levels, state Havard researchers.
In another study from Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, older people with insufficient levels of vitamin D may be at an increased risk of dying from heart disease than those with adequate levels of the vitamin. Compared to people with optimal vitamin D status, those with low vitamin D levels were three times more likely to die from heart disease and 2.5 times more likely to die from any cause.
Younger white women with vitamin D deficiencies are about three times more likely to have high blood pressure in middle age than those with normal vitamin levels.
The study, presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago, adds younger women to a growing list of people including men who may develop high blood pressure at least in part because of low vitamin D.
Researchers in Michigan, who examined data on 559 women beginning in 1992, found that those with low levels of vitamin D were more likely to have high blood pressure 15 years later in 2007.
"Our results indicate that early vitamin D deficiency may increase the long-term risk of high blood pressure in women at mid-life," said Flojaune Griffin, who worked on the study for the University of Michigan School of Public Health.
The women in the blood pressure study lived in Tecumseh, Michigan, and were 24 to 44 years old with an average age of 38, when the research began. The study was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
According to scientists at the Australian Institute of Sport, of the Vitamin D status of 18 of the country’s elite female gymnasts, 15 had levels that were “below current recommended guidelines for optimal bone health.” Six of these had Vitamin D levels that would qualify as medically deficient.
In another study presented, earlier this year, University of Wyoming researchers found that many of a group of distance runners had poor Vitamin D status. Forty percent of the runners, who trained outdoors in sunny Baton Rouge, Louisiana, had insufficient Vitamin D.
More recently, when researchers tested the vertical jumping ability of a small group of adolescent athletes, they found that those who had the lowest levels of Vitamin D tended not to jump as high.
Low levels might also contribute to sports injuries, in part because Vitamin D is so important for bone and muscle health. In a Creighton University study of female naval recruits, stress fractures were reduced significantly after the women started taking supplements of Vitamin D and calcium.
According to researchers, almost every cell in the body has receptors for Vitamin D. It can up-regulate and down-regulate hundreds, maybe even thousands of genes. We’re only at the start of understanding how important it is. But many of us, it seems, no matter how active and scrupulous we are about health, don’t get enough Vitamin D. Lack of exposure to sunlight and dietary sources of Vitamin D are meager.
Cod-liver oil provides a whopping dose. But a glass of fortified milk provides a fraction of what scientists now think we need per day. Supplements are crucial.
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