The recent research suggests men and women who take vitamin D are not any more protected against strokes, heart attacks, or other related heart conditions than those who don’t, in a surprising discovery as prior work has pointed to links between lower levels of circulating vitamin D and cardiovascular disease.
“We thought it would show some benefit. It didn’t show even a small benefit. This was surprising.” says co-author Mahmoud Bararawi.
Data was gathered from 21 clinical trials involving over 83,000 patients to assess results; across these studies half of the patients took vitamin D supplements and the other half took placebos. In both groups similar rates of heart ailments and deaths related to cardiovascular disease were found.
Based on their findings, “We don’t recommend taking vitamin D to reduce this risk,” Barbarawi says, going on to add that those who take supplements for other reasons such as osteoporosis should continue to do so.
Barbarawi believes that outdoor activity/exercise and a healthy diet are more likely to have been behind findings of earlier studies showing a connection to cardiovascular disease, as published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Cardiology.
