Vitamin D aids surgery patients

NEW YORK: Many patients have low vitamin D levels before and after open-heart surgery, but those levels can be restored to normal with supplementation, a study suggests.

It included 150 patients who had elective open-heart surgery. They generally had low levels of vitamin D before their operation, and the stress of surgery caused those levels to fall even more. But patients who had megadoses of vitamin D3 before and after surgery had normal levels of vitamin D soon after their operation.

The findings, while preliminary, are important because vitamin D deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, congestive heart failure, high blood pressure and diabetes, said lead author Dr J Brent Muhlestein, a cardiovascular researcher at the Intermountain Medical Centre Heart Institute in Salt Lake City.

“We’re gathering more evidence that vitamin D deficiency is strongly associated with heart disease and death,” Muhlestein said.

“Now that we know the stress from surgery causes vitamin D levels to drop, we want to continue our research and see if supplementing vitamin D levels will help prevent heart problems, given our understanding that low levels of vitamin D can cause an increased risk for heart problems,” he said. – The New York Times