HHS HealthBeat (January 08, 2008)

Vitamin D and hearts

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A study indicates people who don’t get enough vitamin D may have a higher risk of heart disease.

Thomas Wang of Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital bases that on data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study. His research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, is in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Wang says people with moderate to severe vitamin D deficiency had a 60 percent greater chance of conditions such as a heart attack. He says his study doesn’t prove the deficiency raised the risk. But vitamin D does help to build stronger bones. So:

``What I would suggest is that people try to improve their intake of vitamin D and vitamin D-containing foods if in fact they are deficient in that area.’’ (7 seconds)

You can get vitamin D from sunshine and foods such as fortified milk.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: January, 24 2008