Dietary vitamin D and risk of heart failure in the Physicians' Health Study

Clin Nutr. 2016 Jun;35(3):650-3. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2015.04.011. Epub 2015 Apr 22.

Abstract

Background: Experimental studies have demonstrated the role of vitamin D in key pathways related to cardiovascular health. While several studies have investigated the impact of vitamin D therapy on outcomes in subjects with prevalent heart failure, limited research exists on the relationship of dietary vitamin D consumption with the risk of heart failure. Thus, we sought to investigate whether dietary vitamin D consumption was associated with a lower risk of incident heart failure in a large prospective cohort of male physicians.

Methods and results: We prospectively studied 19,635 males from the Physicians' Health Study. Dietary vitamin D information was obtained from a baseline food frequency questionnaire, and heart failure information was obtained by questionnaire and validated in a subsample. Mean age was 66.4 years. Median dietary vitamin D consumption was 200.4 IU and only 2.3% of the subjects used vitamin D supplements. After an average follow-up of 9.3 years, there were 858 new cases of heart failure identified. Higher intake of dietary vitamin D was not associated with incident heart failure in a multivariable adjusted model: hazard ratios (95% CI) of incident heart failure were 1.0 (reference), 1.29 (1.04-1.60), 1.17 (0.94-1.46), 1.22 (0.98-1.53), and 1.16 (0.92-1.46) from lowest to highest age- and energy-adjusted vitamin D quintile, respectively, after adjusting for age, BMI, race, exercise, alcohol use, smoking, calories, and prevalent atrial fibrillation (p for linear trend = 0.64).

Conclusions: These data are consistent with a lack of an association between dietary vitamin D and incident heart failure in this population of professionally-employed middle-aged males.

Keywords: Cardiovascular disease; Diet; Epidemiology; Heart failure; Vitamin D.

Publication types

  • Observational Study

MeSH terms

  • Aged
  • Cohort Studies
  • Diet, Healthy*
  • Dietary Supplements
  • Elder Nutritional Physiological Phenomena*
  • Follow-Up Studies
  • Heart Failure / epidemiology
  • Heart Failure / prevention & control*
  • Humans
  • Incidence
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • NADP Transhydrogenases
  • Patient Compliance*
  • Physicians
  • Proportional Hazards Models
  • Prospective Studies
  • Risk
  • Self Report
  • United States / epidemiology
  • Vitamin D / therapeutic use*

Substances

  • Vitamin D
  • NADP Transhydrogenases