The relationship between blood levels of vitamin D and life expectancy
Much is known about the relationship between vitamin D insufficiency and a variety of illnesses, but little action results. We are in an age of government directed preventative medicine in many countries; this necessitates the identification of deficiency or excess of factors that have a plausibly causal relationship to disease and applying correction.
David S Grimes
The paper by Melamed and colleagues provides such an opportunity. It is a large population study of blood levels of vitamin D in a sample of 13 331adults, and correlating the subsequent deaths, not just from all causes, but also specifically from cardiovascular disease, cancers and infectious diseases. The subjects were grouped into quartiles according to the vitamin D level.
It is clear that insufficiency of vitamin provides a major health risk, giving a 78% increased overall mortality in the lowest quartile.
It is interesting to note that blood levels of vitamin D are significantly higher than are found in the UK. Hyppönen and Dawson 2007 reported that of 45 year-old adults 46.8% had vitamin D (25(OH)D, calcidiol) levels less that 16ng/ml in the winter and 15.4 % in the summer, compared to less than 25% overall in this group from the USA. (see review 001).
This paper should cause governments to give thought to an opportunity for health improvement of their populations
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