Vitamin D & blood pressure.Getting too little vitamin D--from sunlight, food, or supplements--may raise the risk of hypertension hypertension or high blood pressure, elevated blood pressure resulting from an increase in the amount of blood pumped by the heart or from increased resistance to the flow of blood through the small arterial blood vessels (arterioles). . For four to eight years, researchers tracked roughly 600 men (health professionals) and 1,200 women (nurses) who didn't have high blood pressure. Roughly five percent of them had low blood levels of vitamin D vitamin D Any of a group of fat-soluble alcohols important in calcium metabolism in animals to form strong bones and teeth and prevent rickets and osteoporosis. It is formed by ultraviolet radiation (sunlight) of sterols (see steroid) present in the skin. (less than 15 ng/mL) when they entered the study. After four years, those people were roughly three times more likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure than those who had higher vitamin D levels when they entered the study. What to do: This study is the first to connect blood levels of vitamin D with hypertension, so it needs to be confirmed by other studies. However, it still makes sense to get about 1,000 IU of vitamin D a day from a multivitamin mul·ti·vi·ta·min adj. Containing many vitamins. n. A preparation containing many vitamins. multivitamin , calcium supplement, milk, or other fortified fortified (fôrt  ´fīd),adj containing additives more potent than the principal ingredient. foods (and, in the summer, from sunlight). Hypertension 49: 1063, 2007. |
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