David Feldman, MD, professor of medicine at Stanford, explores the biological action of Vitamin D beyond its widely understood role in the information and maintenance of bone. Emerging therapeutic uses of the vitamin include the prevention and treatment of breast, prostate and colon cancer, chronic kidney disease and arthritis, among other conditions.
The Vitamin D Pandemic and its Health Consequences\nPresented by Michael Holick, PhD, MD, Professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics and director of the General Clinical Research Center at Boston University Medical Center\nKeynote address at the opening ceremony of the 34th European Symposium on Calcified Tissues, Copenhagen 5 May, 2007\n
"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."