Calcium, Vitamin D and Cardiovascular Disease – Review
Kidney and Blood Pressure Research, Vol. 34, No. 6, 2011
Idris Guessousa, b, Murielle Bochud b, Olivier Bonny c, Michel Burnier c
A Unit of Population Epidemiology, Division of Primary Care Medicine, Department of Community Medicine, Primary Care and Emergency Medicine, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva,
B Community Prevention Unit, University Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP),
C Department of Medicine, Service of Nephrology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland
The relationship between calcium and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has been explored for a long time.
Studies exploring the effect of calcium intake or calcium supplementation on cardiovascular risk suggest that systolic blood pressure increases under low calcium intake and decreases with calcium supplementation.
A lower calcium intake has been associated with an increased risk of stroke.
However, the impact of calcium supplementation on stroke risk remains unclear.
Calcium supplementation may increase the risk of myocardial infarction.
The relationship between vitamin D and CVD has been explored more recently.
Negative correlations between vitamin D levels and the risk of hypertension, myocardial infarction, and stroke have been reported in several observational studies.
The effect of vitamin D supplementation on blood pressure is still unclear and no effect of vitamin D supplementation on coronary heart disease or stroke has been clearly demonstrated.
There is a lack of randomized clinical trials primarily addressing the effect of these parameters on CVD.
Therefore, the real impact of calcium and vitamin D on cardiovascular outcomes remains to be documented by appropriate experimental data.
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