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Conclusion: Vitamin D3 at doses equivalent to 2000 IU/d for 1 yr is safe in adolescents and results in desirable vitamin D levels. Short- and long-term safety of weekly high-dose vitamin D3 supplementation in school children. Maalouf J, Nabulsi M, Vieth R, Kimball S, El-Rassi R, Mahfoud Z, El-Hajj Fuleihan G. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jul;93(7):2693-701. Epub 2008 Apr 29. PMID: 18445674 doi:10.1210/jc.2007-2530

ScienceDaily (Aug. 25, 2009) - Low levels of vitamin D are known to nearly double the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes, and researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis now think they know why. They have found that diabetics deficient in vitamin D can't process cholesterol normally, so it builds up in their blood vessels, increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke. The new research has identified a mechanism linking low vitamin D levels to heart disease risk and may lead to ways to fix the problem, simply by increasing levels of vitamin D.

October 6th, 2008 A study led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine suggests that use of oral Vitamin D supplements bolsters production of a protective chemical normally found in the skin, and may help prevent skin infections that are a common result of atopic dermatitis, the most common form of eczema.

March 27, 2009 - A significant decrease in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels has led to an increase in vitamin D insufficiency in the US population, especially in racial and ethnic groups, according to results of a population-based study reported in the March 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. "Vitamin D insufficiency has been associated with increases in cardiovascular disease, cancer, and infection," write Adit A. Ginde, MD, from the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, Aurora, Colorado, and colleagues. "Vitamin D supplementation appears to mitigate the incidence and adverse outcomes of these diseases and may reduce all-cause mortality." [...] "These findings have important implications for health disparities and public health," the study authors conclude. "Our data provide additional evidence that current recommendations for vitamin D supplementation (200-600 IU/d) are inadequate to achieve optimal serum 25(OH)D levels in most of the US population." They add that large, randomized controlled trials of higher doses of vitamin D supplementation are needed to evaluate their effect on general health and mortality.

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-

PLYMOUTH medical researchers have discovered a link between lack of the 'sunshine vitamin' and the onset of dementia.\n\nTeams from the city's Peninsula Medical School and the universities of Cambridge and Michigan have for the first time found a relationship between lower Vitamin D levels and cognitive impairment in older people.\n\nThe results of their large-scale study are to be published in the Journal of Geriatric Psychology and Neurology.

"THURSDAY, Dec. 3 (HealthDay News) -- New research points to the possibility of a genetic link between vitamin D and heart disease. People with high blood pressure who had a gene variant that reduces vitamin D activation in the body were found to be twice as likely as those without the variant to have congestive heart failure, the study found. The finding may lead to a way to identify people at increased risk for heart disease, according to Robert U. Simpson, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School and his research colleagues. They analyzed the genetic profiles of 617 people. One-third had hypertension, one-third had hypertension and congestive heart failure, and the remaining third served as healthy controls. The researchers found that a variant in the CYP27B1 gene was associated with congestive heart failure in people with hypertension. The study is in the November issue of Pharmacogenomics."

"DALLAS, Jan. 8 - The same vitamin D deficiency that can result in weak bones now has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, Framingham Heart Study researchers report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. "Vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased cardiovascular risk, above and beyond established cardiovascular risk factors," said Thomas J. Wang, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. "The higher risk associated with vitamin D deficiency was particularly evident among individuals with high blood pressure." In a study of 1,739 offspring from Framingham Heart Study participants (average age 59, all Caucasian), researchers found that those with blood levels of vitamin D below15 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) had twice the risk of a cardiovascular event such as a heart attack, heart failure or stroke in the next five years compared to those with higher levels of vitamin D."

"June 29, 2009 | Shelley Wood Boston, MA - A massive, National Institutes of Health-sponsored study looking at whether vitamin-D and/or omega-3 fatty-acid supplementation can reduce the risk of developing heart disease, stroke, or cancer will get under way in January 2010, according to a website for the study. Drs JoAnn Manson and Julie Buring (Harvard Medical School/ Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA) will head up the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial (VITAL). The study is aiming to enroll 20 000 men and women, one-quarter of whom will be black. According to a Brigham and Women's Hospital press release, the study is intentionally aiming to illuminate a potential racial and ethnic disparity hypothesized to be linked to vitamin D [1]. "African Americans have a higher risk of vitamin-D deficiency as well as a greater frequency of diabetes, hypertension, and certain types of cancer," a press release notes. For VITAL, women need to be over age 65 to enter the study; men need to be over age 60. Study participants will be randomized to one of four groups: daily vitamin D (2000 IU) and fish oil (1 g); daily vitamin D and fish-oil placebo; daily vitamin-D placebo and fish oil; or daily vitamin-D placebo and fish-oil placebo. The trial will run for five years and is expected to cost US $20 million."