Vitamin D: the newest coronary risk factor?

Vitamin D: the newest coronary risk factor?

It's probably one of the most exciting health phenomena I've stumbled across in the last 10 years: I am absolutely, 100% convinced that deficiency of vitamin D is an enormously powerful risk for heart disease.

What causes coronary heart disease? You'veheard the list-yawn-before: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes.

Funny . . . Most of the people I know with heart disease have none of these factors. Clearly the list is incomplete.

We already know that vitamin D deficiency is rampant, affecting as many as 90% of people in many regions of the U.S. Modern lifestyles guarantee it: Driving in cars, often in northern latitudes, and-shockingly-we wear clothes! Not to mention that aging alone guarantees a 70% or greater drop in our capacity to convert vitamin D to its active form in the skin. (I saw an 80-year old man just recently who sported deep, dark leathery tan from hours of sun every day. His blood level of active vitamin D: barely detectable.)

The list of consequences of vitamin D deficiency is growing by the day: cancer of the colon, prostate, breast, and bladder; osteoporosis, arthritis, and fractures; multiple sclerosis; inflammatory diseases.

But there's also lower HDL cholesterol, lower triglycerides, higher c-reactive protein (the measure of hidden inflammation), higher blood sugar, poor response to insulin, higher blood pressure-in other words, all factors that lead to heart disease.

Does supplementation with vitamin D reduce your risk for heart disease? I think so. No-I absolutely am convinced it does. Over the last several years, I have actively worked to try and help patients reverse coronary heart disease. Not only have we succeeded, but we have succeeded on such an extraordinary scale that even I didn't believe it at first. In fact, our record holder for heart disease reversal has reduced her (yes, it's a woman) quantity of heart disease (atherosclerosis) by 63%. Yes, 63%.

To my knowledge, this is unprecedented in the annals of modern medicine.

We have a nation that is suffering extraordinary levels of severe and longstanding deficiency of this crucial nutrient. Why? Part of the answer is lifestyle. Another factor is the misguided advice originally drafted by the Food and Nutrition Board way back in the 1960s that has been upheld until now.

Vitamin D expert, Dr. Reinhold Vieth, at the University of Toronto has unequivocally stated:

"The basis for adult vitamin D recommendations [was] arbitrary. Thirty-six years ago, an expert committee on vitamin D could provide only anecdotal support for what it referred to as ‘the hypothesis of a small requirement' for vitamin D in adults and it recommended one-half the infant dose, just to ensure that adults obtain some from the diet."

Imagine the same situation had developed with vitamin C: We'd all be toothless, arthritic, and ridden with open sores. We'd all be scratching our heads over something readily remedied by 30 mg of vitamin C. The same, I believe, has happened with vitamin D. We were misled by the limited understanding of this crucial nutrient, followed by the advice drafted in a vacuum of scientific experience, and were advised that vitamin D doses like 200-400 units were sufficient for adults. We then went on to have our high blood pressure, high blood sugars, diabetes, osteoporosis, and heart attacks.