New study finds Vitamin D can 'heal damaged hearts'

Daily dose of supplement found to improve health of patients with chronic heart failure, say scientists

Beach
Locals enjoy the sun at Sydney's Bondi Beach
(Image credit: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

A daily dose of vitamin D3 can dramatically improve heart function in people with chronic heart failure, scientists from Leeds University have found.

Researchers studied 160 patients being treated for heart failure using a variety of drug treatments and pacemakers.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"It's quite a big deal. That's as big as you'd expect from other more expensive treatments that we use. It's a stunning effect," Dr Klaus Witte, who led the study, told BBC News.

"It's as cheap as chips, has no side effects and a stunning improvement on people already on optimal medical therapy, it is the first time anyone has shown something like this in the last 15 years."

For some patients, this discovery means regularly taking vitamin D3 could lessen the need for them to be fitted with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator to help correct dangerous heart rhythms, reports The Independent.

Heart failure, which can lead to shortness of breath and exhaustion, affects about 900,000 people in the UK and more than 23 million worldwide.

Vitamin D levels are boosted by exposing the skin to sunlight. It is often lacking in heart failure patients because they tend to be older and less likely to engage in outdoor activities, says the Daily Telegraph.

Dr Witte said that change in lifestyle choices over time – covering our bodies with clothes and living in cities covered in pollution – have led to a new onset of vitamin D deficiency.

"I think Western societies and cultures have led to us becoming vitamin D deficient as a result of our lifestyle choices," he added.

Explore More