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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Younger white women with vitamin D deficiencies are about three times more likely to have high blood pressure in middle age than those with normal vitamin levels, according to a study released on Thursday. The study, presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association in Chicago, adds younger women to a growing list of people including men who may develop high blood pressure at least in part because of low vitamin D.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Low levels of vitamin D are associated with the loss of cartilage in the knee joint of older individuals, researchers in Australia report

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New research suggests that low vitamin D levels in the body are associated with thinking or "cognitive" impairments in older men, but whether vitamin D supplements can help is not yet known. In the study, an investigation of European men, subjects with low levels of vitamin D scored worse on a standard test of cognitive ability than did their peers with normal levels, Dr. David M. Lee, from the University of Manchester, UK, and co-researchers found. Although, the authors emphasize, the difference in scores was not that great.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The "sunshine vitamin," vitamin D, is increasingly seen as vital to health, yet more Americans are not getting enough, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Analyzing data from government health surveys, researchers from the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine found three out of four Americans had "insufficient" levels of vitamin D, up from about one out two 20 years ago-

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Important news for seniors: A daily dose of vitamin D cuts your risk of falling substantially, researchers reported today. But not just any dose will do. "It takes 700 to 1000 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day and nothing less will work," Dr. Heike A. Bischoff-Ferrari, who directs the Center on Aging and Mobility at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, noted in an email to Reuters Health. Those recommendations - which are higher than those by the U.S. Institute of Medicine -- are based on the results of eight studies that looked at vitamin D supplements for fall prevention among more than 2,400 adults aged 65 and older. Falls were not notably reduced with daily doses of vitamin D lower than 700 IU. An analysis of all eight studies, posted online today in the British Medical Journal, add weight to several others which have shown that vitamin D improves strength and balance, and bone health in the elderly, the researchers note."

Many U.S. teenagers -- including half of African Americans -- would be considered vitamin D-deficient if the definition of deficiency were changed to what many experts recommend, a new study finds. Right now, people are considered to have an overt deficiency in vitamin D when blood levels drop below 11 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), but there is debate over how the optimal vitamin D level should be define

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Low vitamin D levels in the body may be deadly, according to a new study hinting that adults with lower, versus higher, blood levels of vitamin D may be more likely to die from heart disease or stroke. Vitamin D is an essential vitamin mostly obtained from direct sunlight exposure, but also found in foods and multivitamins. Dr. Annamari Kilkkinen, at the National Institute for Health and Welfare in Helsinki, Finland, and colleagues compared blood levels of vitamin D and deaths from heart disease or stroke over time in 2,817 men and 3,402 women in Finland."