Is Vitamin D the New Aspirin (or Statin)?

We often say that aspirin can do anything, like statins, and Botox. Vitamin D has a long list of possibly useful associations – type 1 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and some cancers, for instance. The latest news on vitamin D deficiency (or rather, low blood levels) comes from a report in the American Journal of Hypertension. Data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey ( NHANES III ) show that low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels are related to raised blood pressure. This inverse relationship was strongest in people over 50, compared with younger participants.

There were ethnic differences in the average levels of serum vitamin D; they were 49 mmol/L in non-Hispanic blacks, 68 mmol/L in Mexican Americans, and 79 mmol/L in non-Hispanic whites. The investigators calculate that these ethnic differences explain about half of the increased hypertension commonly seen in non-Hispanic blacks. And they go on to speculate whether this finding, if confirmed, may lead to deliberate elevation of vitamin D levels by increasing sun exposure or vitamin D supplementation.