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Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

empirical.health

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Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#11

Post by suprjami »

ziml77 wrote: post #6

Is this actually real? I don't see any link to a study. The use of AI has me suspect, as does visiting the main page of the site and seeing: "A 365º view of your heart health" I guess that could be intentional but it comes off as someone mistaking days in a year with degrees in a circle.

One web search away. It was apparently a conference presentation but is well reported in medical media:

https://newsroom.heart.org/news/heart-attack-risk-halved-in-...

https://www.hcplive.com/view/target-d-optimized-vitamin-d-do...

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#12

Post by Supermancho »

bookofjoe wrote: post #7
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very surprised if most people get vitamin d levels measured annually.

I would be very surprised if anyone got vitamin d levels measured who didn't specifically request it.

The 25-hydroxy vitamin D test (aka: 25(OH)D test) is not part of a lipid panel, comprehensive (nor standard) metabolic panel, or any number of tests I have regularly. Without a specific request, it's unlikely anyone gets tested for this unless maybe you're a psychiatric patient. When I had severe depression in my 20s, a doctor did have this test done.

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#14

Post by canucker2016 »

ziml77 wrote: post #6

Is this actually real? I don't see any link to a study. The use of AI has me suspect, as does visiting the main page of the site and seeing: "A 365º view of your heart health" I guess that could be intentional but it comes off as someone mistaking days in a year with degrees in a circle.

FTA under "TARGET-D study Caveats"

  There are two main caveats to the TARGET-D study. First, this was presented at the American Heart Association scientific sessions, but the full manuscript isn’t out yet. It’s possible the results will end up not being statistically significant, having a methodological flaw, and so on. In the presented results, the reduction in heart attack risk was statistically significant but the change in overall death and stroke risk had a p value > 0.05. Second, while Vitamin D seems to be an effective intervention to reduce heart attack risk, we don’t yet know whether Vitamin D is an independent marker of heart disease risk or whether it’s reflecting known mechanisms such as inflammation and calcification.

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#15

Post by shevy-java »

> Vitamin D also stabilizes plaques in arteries by reducing macrophage activation.

Well, that is strange though. Because if you have such an effect, should you not include this? If macrophages are less active, perhaps infection rates go up, which can contribute to death. Perhaps not to the amount of the 52% gains mentioned here, but the website does not mention this at all whatsoever; the word "macrophages" occurs only twice on total.

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#16

Post by Sharlin »

themafia wrote: post #4

Isn't it a possibility that our lifestyles have changed in ways that have reduced the amount of Vitamin D we have historically received? Are we incidentally measuring the sum result of our social choices?

Well, most of us certainly spend much less time outside than common folks in preindustrial societies.

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#17

Post by tehjoker »

bookofjoe wrote: post #7
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be very surprised if most people get vitamin d levels measured annually.

I would be very surprised if anyone got vitamin d levels measured who didn't specifically request it.

It's surprising because so many people are deficient and the treatment is extremely cheap. It's bizarre, it's like if a problem is a big enough problem, medicine says well most people are living with it and washes its hands.

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#18

Post by shevy-java »

canucker2016 wrote: post #14
ziml77 wrote: post #6

Is this actually real? I don't see any link to a study. The use of AI has me suspect, as does visiting the main page of the site and seeing: "A 365º view of your heart health" I guess that could be intentional but it comes off as someone mistaking days in a year with degrees in a circle.

FTA under "TARGET-D study Caveats" There are two main caveats to the TARGET-D study. First, this was presented at the American Heart Association scientific sessions, but the full manuscript isn’t out yet. It’s possible the results will end up not being statistically significant, having a methodological flaw, and so on. In the presented results, the reduction in heart attack risk was statistically significant but the…

> but the full manuscript isn’t out yet.

Aww that's bad.

I remember years ago they claimed that a bacterium was using arsenic instead of phosphorus - turns out the data they produced was all made up:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1197258

This was here in this article most likely not the case, I assume, but still it is bad to talk about the data without having published the article already.

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#19

Post by crazygringo »

themafia wrote: post #4

Isn't it a possibility that our lifestyles have changed in ways that have reduced the amount of Vitamin D we have historically received? Are we incidentally measuring the sum result of our social choices?

Of course, we get less sun from being outdoors less and wearing more sunscreen. This isn't just a possibility, this is generally understood.

Re: Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?

#20

Post by brandonb »

skribb wrote: post #8
brandonb wrote: post #2

This was a write-up of a new study (TARGET-D) that used vitamin D supplements -- with the supplement amount guided by blood testing -- to reduce heart attack risk. I've been working in heart health in 10 years and I was surprised at the magnitude of the effect here. I hope it holds up as they move toward the final publication. Vitamin D supplementation is cheap and this could have a huge benefit.

I believe there's also a Finnish vit-d study which showed very good results in afib protection

Cool! Is this the one? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37302737/
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