May 30, 2012

Vitamin D and Stroke Risk

Now from the journal Stroke, a study from the famous Kuakini Honolulu Heart Program that followed over many years several thousand Japanese-American men living on Oahu, beginning in 1965.  A recent study of stroke outcomes has found that men with DIETS rich in Vitamin D had a 27% reduction in stroke risk, after adjusting for all the other usual suspects (smoking, cholesterol, etc etc).  
Not a clinical trial, but the measurements of diet were well done. Unless Japanese men are so different from the rest of us that we can't generalize, the study is highly suggestive of causation. 
I haven't read the full article, cause I don't have access to Stroke and don't want to pay for an article that should be in the public domain (since the public undoubtedly funded the original study).  But 27% risk reduction in a common source of death and disability isn't something to be ignored.  
To paraphrase my old Turkish friend Isik, "What if it works?"