Natural Health Alternatives

An article from Researchers of the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis discovered why  low levels of vitamin D nearly double the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes.

Carlos Bernal-Mizrachi, M.D., and his colleagues believes that diabetes symptoms of heart disease is linked to inadequate vitamin D. He says that the macrophage cells - which eat more cholesterol - eventually stiffen blood vessels and block blood flow. This build-up increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Doctors Bernal and Mizrachi believes that people  with type 2 diabetes are very likely to have a vitamin D deficiency.Also  most women with type 2 diabetes are one-third more likely to have insufficient vitamin D levels than women of the same age who do not have diabetes.

In reality our skin manufactures vitamin D in response to ultraviolet light exposure. But, in many parts of the United States, during the winter months when the sun’s rays are much weaker and more time we spend indoors , the average person does not make enough vitamin D.

In Doctor Bernal-Mizrachi ’s research they found it to be possible to slow or reverse the development of atherosclerosis in patients with diabetes by helping them regain adequate vitamin D levels.

“Oral vitamin D supplements may work best,” he says, “but if people were exposed to more sunlight ,if  only for a few minutes at a time, that could be an option, too.”