Vitamin D Supplementation Does Not Decrease Blood Pressure

A new research has concluded that vitamin D supplementation is inadequate in decreasing blood pressure and shouldn’t be used as an anti-hypertensive agent. The results oppose recommendations that the vitamin could be used as therapy for raised blood pressure.

The research, presented in JAMA Internal Medicine, is a systematic evaluation of studies and patient data, which includes randomized placebo-controlled clinical studies using vitamin D supplementation.

Lead author Dr. Miles Witham stated “Large studies have found that individuals with low vitamin D levels seem to have higher blood pressure”  .

“It has not been clear though if giving vitamin D to individuals actually decreases their blood pressure as individual studies have been very small to find out the answer.”

Vitamin D is used in the body to manage calcium and phosphorus absorption and to keep bones and teeth healthy. It is also assumed to decrease the risk of various chronic diseases like as cancer, type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

The majority of the body’s vitamin D supply comes from visibility to the sun. Sensible sun exposure on bare skin for 5-10 minutes twice or thrice a week is considered to be sufficient to allow the body to produce adequate quantities of the vitamin.

While sunlight is both its very common and most powerful source, vitamin D can also be acquired from numerous food sources -especially fish oil and fatty fish.

A number of intervention studies have been performed to examine the blood-pressure-lowering characteristics of vitamin D as low levels of vitamin D are connected with increased blood pressure. These research have so far offered conflicting proof as to the effects of vitamin D on cardiovascular health, however, driving the require for a systematic review.

Outcomes show supplements ‘do not decrease your blood pressure’

Collaborators from the UK, US, Australia, New Zealand, India and Europe worked jointly to evaluate trial and sufferer data, such as data from 46 studies where vitamin D had been used in effort to lower blood pressure (involving around 4,500 participants in total). Individual patient data were received for 27 studies (involving around 3,000 participants).

Lead author Dr. Witham states that “By combining all of these studies into one analysis, we have been capable to present that getting vitamin D supplements doesn’t decrease your blood pressure – even if you start with low vitamin D levels or a high blood pressure.”

Dr. Witham thinks that the study’s results are essential as many physicians have currently suggested that sufferers with hypertension must take vitamin D. “Our work reveals that this does not work,” he points out, “and so vitamin D cannot be suggested as a way to help control high blood pressure.”

“Vitamin D can help decrease falls and bone injuries in older individuals, and might still have other health advantages,” he adds, “but we require to wait for the outcomes from additional large clinical studies before we know if more extensive use of this treatment is safe or worthwhile.”

While medication can be recommended to control and prevent high blood pressure, there are also a number of lifestyle modifications that can be made, instead of depending on ineffective vitamin D supplementation. Consuming healthy foods, reducing salt intake, limiting alcohol, decreasing stress and quitting smoking – all of these measures are suggested for decreasing blood pressure.