VITAMIN D AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are
considered to be the number one cause of deaths in the world. In 2015 it was
estimated that 17.7 million people died from cardiovascular diseases,
representing 31% of all the deaths that occurred worldwide that year. The disorders
are also considered lifestyle diseases because, with proper dieting and
exercise, it is easy to evade them. The review, however, breaks down to the
elements and considers vitamin D as a causal factor of this diseases. The above
are the reasons why I decided to look at this article that sheds light on how
the Vitamin D relate to these cardiovascular diseases.
The review is aimed at bringing to
light the role vitamin D plays in the cardiovascular system. It analyzes
vitamin D’s role from endothelial dysfunction initiation to stroke and
myocardial infarction development. According to the article, atherosclerosis is
the leading factor that causes peripheral artery disease (PAD), heart attacks,
and stroke. It’s a plaque characterized by clogging and hardening of blood
vessels and arteries. The article highlights that there is a challenge in
identifying all the factors that play in initiating and aggravating the
development of the plaque. Also, there is little knowledge of the potential
role played by the deficiency of vitamin D. The article states that, in the
past one decade, there have been several studies and all seem to propose that
lack of vitamin D promote the formation of atheroma and that with vitamin D
supplements the vascular risk depreciates. The studies also offer an opposing
suggestion that vitamin D may aggravate the risk of calcification of the blood
vessel walls.
The article, therefore, goes ahead to
look at these two propositions in detail. The article presents several pieces
of evidence to support each of the proposition. By the end of the discussion,
it is not entirely clear whether vitamin D plays a role in cardiovascular risk
or not. However, the article provides two explanations for this. One of the
possible explanation is that it is possible that vitamin D concentration is
associated with the formation of atheroma but with a U-shape relationship where
both low and high level of the vitamin causes vascular risk. The second
explanation is that atheroma formation is common for middle-age and young-old
adults when there is a deficiency of the vitamin D. The opposite of this is
however expected for older adults where with aging there is frail of the blood
vessels. The article, therefore, proposes further studies in this area to
identify the exact role played by vitamin D in the vascular system.
Other than vitamin D’s role in
atherosclerosis, the article looks at the vitamin’s role in myocardial
infarction (MI) and stroke. The article suggests that low levels of vitamin D
are associated with myocardial infarction where some studies which were done
previously support this. The article proposes that maintaining 75nmol/l or a
little higher than that reduces the possibility of MI and other cardiovascular
diseases. The article further proposes that vitamin D presence may protect an
individual against stroke however only a few studies have been done to prove
this. In conclusion, the article recommends further studies to be done on the
subject to produce conclusive results on how vitamin D impacts on stroke, MI,
and atherosclerosis.
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