Vitamine D tegen hartproblemen*
Uit een Duitse studie blijkt dat hoge bloedwaarden vitamine D belangrijk zijn in het voorkomen van doodgaan als gevolg van een hartstilstand of hartfalen. De wetenschappers onderzochten 3.299 deelnemers op mogelijke afsluitingen in de kransslagaders en volgden ze voor bijna 8 jaar. In deze periode stierven 116 deelnemers als gevolg van hartfalen en 188 als gevolg van een hartstilstand. Zij met te lage bloedwaarden vitamine D hadden 3x zoveel kans op het doodgaan aan hartfalen en wel 5x meer kans op het doodgaan als gevolg van een hartstilstand.
Low vitamin D linked to sudden cardiac death - study
Want to have a healthy heart? Eat plenty of food rich in vitamin D.
New research by scientists at the University of Heidelberg in Germany shows that vitamin D deficiency, which is known to affect the ability of the heart to contract, is associated with heart problems, sudden cardiac death, and heart failure.
Dr. Stefan Pilz and his team assessed vitamin D levels in 3,299 patients who were tested for clogged heart arteries, a condition known as coronary angiography, from 1997 to 2000. All of the patients were studied for 7.7 years.
During follow-up, 116 patients died from heart failure and 188 from sudden cardiac death, Pilz and colleagues reported in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
They found that severe vitamin D deficiency, compared with optimal vitamin D levels, was associated with nearly a three-fold increased risk of death from heart failure and about a five-fold increased risk of sudden cardiac death.
"These data strongly indicate that the maintenance of an optimal vitamin D status may be a promising approach for the prevention and/or therapy of (heart) diseases, warranting confirmation in interventional trials with vitamin D supplementation," Pilz said in the study.
Vitamin D is known as the sunshine vitamin because a rich source is from sunlight. Good food sources include oily fish, eggs, liver and products such as margarine and cereal fortified with vitamin D.
(Februari
2009)
