Vitamin D deficiency linked to high blood pressure

Pre-menopausal women who have a vitamin D deficiency are significantly more likely to develop high blood pressure in mid-life, latest study results suggest.

Between 1992 and 2007, US researchers took annual blood pressure measurements from 559 women aged 24 to 44. Vitamin D levels were measured once in 1993 and then compared with systolic blood pressure measurements taken in 2007.

The researchers found that women who had a vitamin D deficiency in 1993 had three times the risk of developing systolic hypertension 15 years later compared to women who had normal levels of vitamin D.

The number of women diagnosed with or being treated for hypertension, or who had undiagnosed systolic hypertension, rose from six per cent at the start of the study to 25 per cent at the end, they said.

“This study differs from others because we are looking over the course of 15 years, a longer follow-up than many studies. Our results indicate that early vitamin D deficiency may increase the long term risk of high blood pressure in women at mid-life,” the researchers said last week at the American Heart Association’s annual high blood pressure research conference in Chicago, Illinois.

Source: NursingTimes.net