Vitamin D May Fight Heart Failure

Vitamin D, known to help prevent cancer and osteoporosis, may help protect the heart as well, University of Michigan pharmacologists said.

In the study, treatments with activated vitamin D prevented heart muscle cells from growing bigger -- hypertrophy, in which the heart becomes enlarged and overworked in people with heart failure. The treatments prevented heart muscle cells from the over-stimulation and increased contractions associated with the progression of heart failure

The study, published in the July issue of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, found that after 13 weeks, the heart failure-prone rats on the high-salt diet -- comparable to the fast food that many humans -- given the calcitriol treatment had significantly lower levels of several key indicators of heart failure than the untreated high-salt diet rats in the study. Calcitriol is a form of vitamin D prescribed by a physician to treat and prevent low levels of calcium of patients whose kidneys or parathyroid glands are not working normally.

For many people, taking vitamin D supplements and some sun exposure are good options, but for those with heart failure will likely need a drug made of a compound or analog of vitamin D that will more powerfully produce vitamin D's effects in the heart, Simpson said.