Vitamin D may prevent heart failure

Sunday June 14, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- Taking vitamin D supplements may help prevent heart failure, according to researchers from the University of Michigan.

Robert U. Simpson, Ph.D., and colleagues found that treated with activated vitamin D, heart muscle cells were less likely to grow bigger.

The growth of heart muscle cells can lead to enlargement of the heart, a condition known as hypertrophy that prompts the heart to overwork, leading to heart failure.

Heart failure affects an estimated 5.3 million Americans. Many people with heart disease or poorly controlled blood pressure experience a form of heart failure called congestive heart failure, which is when the heart can't pump blood around the body and causes weakness and fluid build-up in lungs and limbs.

The current study was meant to examine the effect of calcitriol (1, 25 dihydroxyvitamin D3) on heart failure in rats fed either a normal diet or a high salt diet, comparable to the high salt diets that humans have.  

The rats used in the study were predisposed to develop human-like heart failure. Rats fed high salt diets are more likely to have heart failure.

At the end of the 13-week study, the researchers found that the heart-failure-prone rats on the high salt diet treated with calcitriol had significantly lower levels of several key predictors of heart failure than rats on a high salt diet, but untreated with vitamin D.

Those treated with vitamin D had lower heart weight and the left ventricles of their hearts were smaller, meaning they were less likely to have enlarged hearts. Also, these rats worked less for each beat while blood pressure was maintained.

Lower heart weight was also observed in rats fed a normal diet.

By Sue Mueller, and edited by Heather Kelley.
Jun 15, 2008 - 2:39:36 PM