Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis unearthed some details about why low levels of vitamin D nearly double the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes.
Carlos Bernal-Mizrachi, M.D., and his colleagues believe that in diabetic patients with inadequate vitamin D, macrophage cells - which eat more cholesterol - eventually stiffen blood vessels and block blood flow. This build-up increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.
People with type 2 diabetes are very likely to have a vitamin D deficiency, according to Bernal-Mizrachi. Worldwide, women with type 2 diabetes are one-third more likely to have insufficient vitamin D levels than women of the same age who do not have diabetes.
The skin manufactures vitamin D in response to ultraviolet light exposure. But, in much of the U.S., people don’t make enough vitamin D during the winter, when the sun’s rays are weaker and more time is spent indoors.
Bernal-Mizrachi believes it may be possible to slow or reverse the development of atherosclerosis in patients with diabetes by helping them regain adequate vitamin D levels.
"Oral vitamin D supplements may work best,” he says, “but perhaps if people were exposed to sunlight only for a few minutes at a time, that may be an option, too.”
The team’s findings were published in the journal Circulation in 2009.
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