Vitamin D and Cardiovascular Disease: The Final Chapter?

Abstract

Vitamin D deficiency is globally prevalent and has been associated with the pathogenesis and complications of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors. Defining these relationships has been challenging, and the clinical applications of vitamin D screening and supplementation for CVD risk prevention and modification have only recently become clearer. Most of the available evidence includes large observational studies and smaller randomized trials that scarcely evaluate CV outcomes as primary endpoints. Additionally, these studies include methodological inconsistencies, making it difficult to ascertain the benefits of vitamin D supplementation. However, more recently, randomized trials have been conducted which utilize CVD outcomes as primary endpoints, while assessing the effects of high dose vitamin D supplementation on CV health. Despite observational evidence as well as a conventional consensus that vitamin D supplementation improves CV health, these studies suggest that vitamin D supplementation likely has no benefit in this regard, at least in the follow-up period and populations evaluated.