Vitamin D Is Heart Healthy For Older Adults

An estimated 800,000 Americans will have a first heart attack according to data from the American Association for Critical Illness Insurance.  "The combined financial cost of heart attacks and strokes is over $225 billion," notes Jesse Slome, director.  "Most personal bankruptcies today are directly tied to medical and healthcare costs."

A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado Denver and Massachusetts General Hospital studied the association between vitamin D levels in the blood and the death rates of those 65 and older.  

Researchers found that older adults with insufficient levels of vitamin D die from heart disease at greater rates that those with adequate levels of the vitamin.  The results are published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

It's likely that more than one-third of older adults now have vitamin D levels associated with higher risks of death and few have levels associated with optimum survival noted the lead author on the study. 

The study noted that older adults are at high risk for vitamin D deficiency often because their skin has less exposure to the sun as a result of less time spent outdoors as well as the body's reduced ability to make vitamin D.

The study analyzed data from the National Center for Health Statistics that was of the 24 million older adults in the United States. Compared to those with optimal vitamin D status, those with low vitamin D levels were 3 times more likely to die from heart disease and 2.5 times more likely to die from any cause.

"Vitamin D has health effects that go beyond strong bones," one of the researchers explained. "It's likely that it makes a vital contribution to good health."