As you have read, I am intrigued but not convinced with all the recent data regarding the importance of vitamin D for cardiovascular health. Although there have been many postive reports, the use of vit D has not been shown to be helpful when tested on a large population of patients.
I have been witness to the hype of many substances that showed promise initially only to have been proven to have not effect or even be harmful when tested on a large scale (vitamin E, folic acid, ...). It is for this reason that, for now, I recommend getting sufficient vitamin D in your diet "that the best way to ensure that you have enough Vit D is to get at least 10-15 minutes of sun every day and consume vitamin D rich foods like drinking fortified milk and eating oily fish (salmon, mackeral, herring, sardines)."
It is exciting that the National Institutes of Health has announced the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL) trial. This study will trial whether vit D or fish oil can reduce the development of cancer, heart disease or stroke in 20,000 healthy middle-aged American men and women. The trial plans to begin enrollment in 2010 and run for 5 years. Therefore, we will not know the answer till at least 2015. However, I do expect that sometime in 2011 we will start to seem some preliminary 1 and 2 year data.
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