Vitamin D & Heart Disease

So yesterday, I was discussing a review of vitamin D & heart disease published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).  I suppose turn about is fair play since I then found another study published early online prior to its January 2012 print in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM) on the topic of vitamin D deficiency and heart disease.

In this study, the authors analyzed a cohort of 439 Korean men & 561 Korean women average 76yo whose average 25OH vitamin D levels were 17.1ng/mL and 14.5ng/mL, respectively, both considered deficient.  Coronary artery calcium scoring was found to be negatively associated with 25OH vitamin D levels when participants were grouped as <15ng/mL, 15-29.9ng/mL, or >30ng/mL, even after adjusting for the typical cardiometabolic confounders.

Now, before you jump to conclusions and start taking supplemental vitamin D, ask yourself if your patient demographics are the same as those in the study.  In other words, are your patients elderly Korean men & women?  Also recognize that this study only demonstrates an association between vitamin D & heart disease.  However, it makes no comment as to a possible cause & effect.  For that, we'll need to wait for the results of VITAL.

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