Vitamin D which has made its importance felt in our lives by the role it plays in strengthening our bones has now, according to a research, been credited as being the key to longer life. A research conducted has linked low Vitamin D levels with deaths from heart attacks and other diseases, thus making the significance of Vitamin D more evident in our lives. Patients with lowest levels of Vitamin D are found to be two times more likely to die from any cause within eight years than those with highest levels.
The link between low vitamin levels and diseases is strongest in the case of heart related ailments. But this doesn’t mean you put up your glares and go sunbathing or start popping Vitamin D pills. Huge doses of Vitamin D are dangerous and being in the sunshine for too long can cause skin cancer. Besides, daily exposure to sunshine provides enough doses of the vitamin. In some cases like ageing, extreme physical activity and other lifestyle factors can cause Vitamin D levels in the body to decrease.
The study that appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine was led by Austrian researchers and involved 3,258 men and women in Southwest Germany. Participants were aged 62 and suffered from some form of heart disease and had their vitamin D levels checked during weekly blood tests. During roughly eight years of follow-up, 737 died, including 463 from heart-related problems. According to one of the vitamin tests used, there were 307 deaths in patients with the lowest levels and 103 deaths in those with the highest levels. Counting age, physical activity and other factors, the researchers calculated that deaths from all causes were about twice as common in patients in the lowest-level group. According to the study’s leading author, Dr. Harald Dobing,
The results don’t prove that low levels of vitamin D are harmful, but the evidence is just becoming overwhelming at this point.
Via: Discovery
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