Have Some Heart Disease

This is the fifth of an eight part series exploring Ontarios decision to stop OHIP/Medicare funding for vitamin D testing.

“Vitamin D deficiency is an unrecognized, emerging cardiovascular risk factor, which should be screened for and treated. Vitamin D is easy to assess, and supplementation is simple, safe, and inexpensive.” James H. O'Keefe MD, cardiologist and Director of Preventive Cardiology, Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, Missouri.

The March 2010 version of the Vitamin D Council newsletter reports on a number of studies linking low blood levels of vitamin D with higher incidences of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems. These were reported in such prestigious journals as the Annals of Internal Medicine.

In one of these studies (reported at the meeting of the American College of Cardiology's annual scientific session in Atlanta) it was found that people with the lowest blood levels of vitamin D had a 170% greater risk of heart attacks than those with the highest levels. So, wouldn’t it make sense to check everyone’s blood levels of vitamin D, especially those with a strong family history of heart disease? What the kind folks at Medicare headquarters are saying is that we should instead spend millions doing coronary bypass surgeries, heart transplants and prescribing Lipitor.