Vitamin D And Aging Related Cardiovascular Disease And Hypertension
Older adults are at increased risk for vitamin D deficiency, largely due to reduced vitamin D intake and decreased cutaneous synthesis . Beyond skeletal health, accumulated evidence has linked vitamin D deficiency to cardiovascular diseases and hypertension in older patients. Advancing age is associated with increased cardiovascular diseases due to vascular endothelial dysfunction as indicated by decreased peripheral arterial endothelium-dependent dilatation . The mechanisms underpinning this association have been attributed mainly to the reductions in nitric oxide synthesis and increases in oxidative stress with aging . Furthermore, advancing age is associated with reduced blood vessels walls compliance and increased incidence of hypertension . Vitamin D deficiency has been found to modulate the vascular endothelial function with aging and, therefore, increase the incidence of hypertension. In a study conducted by Kestenbaum et al., 2312 older participants without cardiovascular disease at baseline were followed for a median period of 14 years . Their results showed that low 25D was associated with incident cardiovascular disease and mortality. Furthermore, in a cross-sectional study conducted by Dorjgochoo et al., low 25D levels were associated with hypertension among older adults .
How A Vitamin B Deficiency Affects Blood Pressure
There’s a reason that B vitamins are considered “essential” nutrients: Your body needs them to function. Because it can’t make them on its own, you need to get them from food, and sometimes supplements, every day. Shortages can turn into serious health problems, like blood pressure that’s too low.
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Supplements And Blood Pressure
According to the Mayo Clinic, these herbal supplements may be linked to an increase in blood pressure:
Bitter orange . The fruit of bitter orange contains p-synephrine, a substance that is similar in structure to the stimulant ephedrine that used to be found in weight-loss medication, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has banned ephedra from dietary supplements since 2004 because it had been shown to raise blood pressure. Some manufacturers have replaced ephedra with bitter orange. Studies on whether bitter orange raises blood pressure are inconclusive, the center says.
Ma huang . Used as a stimulant for weight loss and to suppress appetite, Ma huang is sold under a number of different names: sea ephedrine, ephedra, ephedra alkaloids, yellow astringent, sea grape, yellow horse, squaw tea, Mormon tea, popotillo, teamsters tea and joint fir, according to the America College of Cardiology. Among its many possible side effects is an increase in blood pressure. Ma huang is not recommended for people with heart and blood pressure conditions.
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Vitamin D Receptor Deficiency Does Not Affect Blood Pressure And Heart Function
- 1Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle , Germany
- 2Competence Cluster for Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health , Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
- 3Julius Bernstein Institute of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle , Germany
How Much Vitamin D Is Safe To Consume
According to the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences, the appropriate daily intake of vitamin D for infants, children, teenagers, adults, and pregnant and lactating women between the ages of 19 and 50 is 200 IU, or five micrograms. Older adults between 51 and 70 should take 400 IU daily, while those aged 70 and above should take 600 IU each day. Other research suggests that people should be taking 2,000 IUs of vitamin D every day, especially if they are deficient. There are even studies which say that 10,000 IUs of daily vitamin D is not considered toxic.
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Studies Regarding Vitamin D And Hypertension
There is accumulating evidence for the association between vitamin D and blood pressure. An earlier analysis of NHANES III 19881994 of 12,644 participants aged > 20 years showed an inverse association between vitamin D level and blood pressure . Similar results were obtained from analysis of NHANES 20032006 of 7228 participants , the Insulin Resistance Atherosclerosis Family Study , and the Kaiser Permanente Southern California health plan .
Forman and colleagues have also demonstrated an inverse association between vitamin D and risk of incident hypertension from two prospective cohort studies including 613 and 38,388 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and 1198 and 77,531 women from the Nurses Health Study. Their results, combining men and women with measured 25D levels, showed a pooled relative risk of 3.18 .
Worldwide studies have also demonstrated such an association. In a cross-sectional study of 833 Caucasian males in Uppsala , a threefold higher prevalence of confirmed hypertension was found in participants with 25D levels < 37.5 nmol/L . Additionally, a cross-sectional analysis of 1460 participants in Shanghai showed high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in middle-aged and elderly Chinese men . In adolescents , a study of 1441 Peruvians showed an inverse association between vitamin D deficiency and blood pressure, which may predispose risk of HTN later in adulthood .
Many Observational Studies Have Already Shown Definite Links Between Low Vitamin D And Hypertension But Didnt Prove That Vitamin D Deficiency Actually Caused The Disease Now We Know
Vitamin D has been shown to lower hypertension risk.
If youre looking for a natural remedy for high blood pressure and you havent had your vitamin D levels checked recently, now is the time. Its likely you have a vitamin D deficiency and are in need of vitamin D supplements to help lower your blood pressure.
Before 2013, a number of observational studies had shown definite links between low vitamin D and hypertension, but they didnt prove that vitamin D deficiency actually may cause the disease. But an important large-scale genetic study known as D-CarDian aimed to establish the causal role of low vitamin D on cardiovascular disease using genetic markers. What did it prove? That low vitamin D levels indeed can cause hypertension. It was the worlds largest study to not only examine the relationship between vitamin D and high blood pressure, but to actually prove cause and effect.
HYPERTENSION: NEW THRESHOLD RECOMMENDATION
Whats the right blood pressure reading? Author Jim Black examines recently revised recommendations in New Hypertension Guidelines: Rethinking Blood Pressure Standards.
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What Are The Symptoms Of High Blood Pressure
The best and earliest indicator of high blood pressure is an elevated blood pressure reading. Other symptoms surface when the disease has taken root and could be life-threatening.
These symptoms include:
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Problems with vision
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Dizziness
When you first get an elevated blood pressure reading, your doctor will recommend taking regular checks to monitor your blood pressure. Persistently elevated blood pressure may be caused by underlying conditions or be an indicator of hypertension.
You can manage hypertension and persistently elevated blood pressure by incorporating vitamins that help reduce blood pressure into your diet.
Does Research Confirm That Vitamin D Influences Blood Pressure
The most convincing mechanistic studies linking vitamin D with RAS blood pressure regulation have been conducted in animal models. One study dove deep with VDR-null mice. They demonstrated that renin expression was more than 3-fold higher than that of wild-type littermates, and both systolic and diastolic blood pressures were significantly higher than those of wild-type littermates. Once these abnormal mice were treated with an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, blood pressure was reduced, confirming that the increase in blood pressure of the VDR-null mice was due to renin and RAS elevation.
To confirm that vitamin D indeed suppresses renin expression in vivo, the researchers treated the wild-type mice with vitamin D. They found that after two days of dosing with vitamin D that renal renin expression was decreased by 35%, and after five days, it was decreased by 50%, confirming the existence of a negative regulatory interaction between vitamin D and the RAS.
This study went a step further. Since vitamin D is a primary regulator of calcium homeostasis, changes in vitamin D status will inevitably alter blood levels of calcium and parathyroid hormone . Therefore, the researchers wanted to determine whether the effect of VDR inactivation on renin expression in vivo is direct or is secondary to changes in blood calcium or PTH levels.
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Elevated Blood Calcium Levels
Vitamin D helps your body absorb calcium from the food you eat. In fact, this is one of its most important roles.
However, if your vitamin D intake is excessive, your blood calcium may reach levels that can cause unpleasant and potentially dangerous symptoms.
The symptoms of vitamin D toxicity are primarily related to hypercalcemia, which means excessively high blood calcium levels (
Hypercalcemia typically develops after people take megadoses of vitamin D for a prolonged period of time.
For example, a 2015 case study reported that an older man with dementia who received 50,000 IU of vitamin D daily for 6 months was repeatedly hospitalized with symptoms related to high calcium levels .
In the 2020 case report mentioned earlier, the woman who took an average of 130,000 IU of vitamin D per day for 20 months was also hospitalized for symptoms related to hypercalcemia .
These included nausea, vomiting, muscle weakness, and kidney injury. Her blood calcium levels were 3.23 mmol/L (
- poor appetite
However, not all people with hypercalcemia experience the exact same symptoms.
One woman experienced nausea and weight loss after taking a supplement that was later found to contain 78 times more vitamin D than stated on the label .
Importantly, these symptoms occurred in response to extremely high doses of vitamin D3, which led to calcium levels greater than 12 mg/dL.
Is Vitamin D A Natural Remedy For High Blood Pressure
If you do have low vitamin D levels, will taking a vitamin D supplement help treat your hypertension? Possibly, according to results of the small number of studies conducted. While the latest studies to examine vitamin D as a natural remedy for high blood pressure have been positive, the truth is that results from studies thus far have been mixed. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study led by a team of doctors from Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston, for example, showed that taking vitamin D3 supplements for three months significantly lowered blood pressure readings.
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Rna Isolation And Real
Total RNA was extracted from the kidney to analyze the mRNA abundance of renin using Trifast reagent according to the manufacturers protocol. Total RNA concentrations and purities were estimated by measuring the optical density at 260 and 280 nm, respectively. A total of 1.2 g of total RNA were used for cDNA synthesis with M-MLV reverse transcriptase . Real-time RT-PCR analyses were performed as described elsewhere in detail . For the determination of mRNA concentration, a threshold cycle and amplification efficiency were obtained from each amplification curve using the Rotor-Gene software version 4.6 . The relative mRNA concentration of renin was calculated according to Pfaffl . Several reference genes were analyzed and their stable expression levels in all groups were evaluated by calculating Ct values. The most stable reference genes were used for normalization. These reference genes hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase , ribosomal protein, large, P0 and succinate dehydrogenase complex flavoprotein subunit A . Characteristics of the primers are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Primer characteristics.
Vitamin D And Mortality
In a prospective cohort study of 3258 patients in southwest Germany with a median follow-up of 7.7 years showed that low vitamin D level is independently associated with higher all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality . Additionally, in the Uppsala Longitudinal Study of Adult Men of 1194 elderly men, both low and high serum 25D levels were associated with increased risk of overall and cancer mortality, however, only low level was associated with cardiovascular mortality . In Finland, a study of 1136 participants from Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study showed that vitamin D deficiency was associated with a higher risk of death .
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What Are The Side Effects Of Low Vitamin D
Symptoms of vitamin D deficiency can include muscle weakness, pain, fatigue and depression. To get enough D, look to certain foods, supplements, and carefully planned sunlight.Signs and symptoms might include: Fatigue. Bone pain. Muscle weakness, muscle aches, or muscle cramps. Mood changes, like depression.
Which Vitamins Do Not Take Potassium On Blood Pressure
Several health benefits can be obtained from vitamin D, asserts he. In theory, too much calcium could deposit calcium on blood vessel walls, valves in the heart, and even in liver and kidneys when consumed in excess. In other words, we dont recommend starting the diet with vitamin D to lower blood pressure.
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How To Take It
The best way to take vitamin C supplements is 2 3 times per day, with meals, depending on the dosage. Some studies suggest that adults should take 250 500 mg twice a day for any benefit. Talk to your doctor before taking more than 1,000 mg of vitamin C on a daily basis and before giving vitamin C to a child.
Daily intake of dietary vitamin C is listed below.
Pediatric
- Men over 18 years: 90 mg
- Women over 18 years: 75 mg
- Pregnant women 14 18 years: 80 mg
- Pregnant women over 18 years: 85 mg
- Breastfeeding women 14 18 years: 115 mg
- Breastfeeding women over 18 years: 120 mg
Because smoking depletes vitamin C, people who smoke may need an additional 35 mg per day.
The dose recommended to prevent or treat many of the conditions mentioned in the Uses section is often 500 1,000 mg per day.
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The Benefits Of Boosting Vitamin D
A direct link has yet to be formed between higher vitamin D levels and lower cardiovascular risk. But its important not to overlook other possible benefits.
While we dont know for sure whether treating with vitamin D can prevent a heart attack, I know at the very least vitamin D is good for the bones, Dr. Michos points out. So I do recommend screening and treating, particularly because women tend to have more fractures and osteoporosis than men.
Were still a few years away from clinical trials that explore the possible link between taking vitamin D supplements to achieve higher vitamin D levels, and lower cardiovascular risk.
Johns Hopkins Womens Cardiovascular Health Center
The Johns Hopkins Womens Cardiovascular Health Center provides education, comprehensive treatment and diagnostic services to prevent and manage heart disease in women.
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How To Correct Omega
The best way to ensure you are not deficient in Omega-3 fats is by eating more fatty fish.
At least 2 grams per day is desirable, equal to around 3 oz of fresh salmon or canned tuna. For vegetarians, its 1 oz of walnuts, 1/3 oz of flax seeds or ¼ oz of chia seeds but note that marine sources of Omega-3 are much better utilised by the body than plant sources .
If fish is difficult to access in your situation, fish oil supplements are an effective and often more affordable alternative. With a goal of lowering blood pressure, 2-3 grams of fish oil per day is recommended. Fish oil pills tend to be 1 or 2 grams total, depending on the brand. If you plan on taking more than 3 grams per day, consult with your doctor first.
Note that quality matters when it comes to supplements, and fish oil is no exception. Anecdotal reports suggest that budget/cheap fish oil varieties are less effective than premium brands.
Summary: A diet low in Omega-3 fats is thought to be bad for high blood pressure. This is likely due to the importance our dietary Omega-6: Omega-3 ratio has on heart health. For this reason, there is strong evidence that increasing Omega-3 fats in the diet can help lower blood pressure. Fresh fish is the best source, but supplements are a great alternative.
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Vitamin D And Cardiovascular Diseases
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to several cardiovascular risk factors . Through increased renin and angiotensin II synthesis, vitamin D deficiency can increase the production of reactive oxygen species and G protein RhoA, resulting in inhibition of the pathways necessary for intracellular glucose transporter and thus the development of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome . In addition, direct effects of vitamin D upon smooth muscle calcification and proliferation could contribute to their effects on cardiovascular health . In the Inter99 study of 6784 individuals, high vitamin D level was associated with a favorable lipid profile and lower incidence of metabolic syndrome .
Furthermore, in an analysis of NHANES III 19881994, low vitamin D was associated with cardiovascular disease and select CVD risk factors, including diabetes mellitus , obesity, and hypertriglyceridemia . In a prospective nested case-control study between 1993 and 1999 of 18,225 US men , low vitamin D was associated with a higher risk of myocardial infarction in comparison with sufficient 25D after multivariate adjustment . Kim and colleagues have found a high prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in individuals with cardiovascular diseases, namely coronary heart disease and heart failure, after controlling for age, race and gender, using data from NHANES 20012004 .
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Hypertension: Relation Between Vitamin D Deficiency And High Blood Pressure
The study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology evaluated the data collected from more than 146,500 people. An 8 percent decrease in the risk of developing hypertension was noted with a 10 percent increase in the consumption of vitamin D. However, further studies are required to claim that vitamin D can definitely reduce high blood pressure.
Sunlight is one of the most significant source of vitamin D. But there are some food sources of vitamin D as well which may include egg yolks, mushrooms, salmon, cow milk, soy milk, cereal, oatmeal, orange juice and cod liver oil.