The association of serum vitamin D levels with several cardiometabolic risk and aortic pulse wave velocity in elderly persons

Recent studies have shown that vitamin D, an important factor for bone health, can also play a role in reducing the risk for several other diseases. Its deficiency seems to be associated with cardiovascular disease. Arterial stiffness, a well-known predictor of hypertension, morbidity and mortality, increases with advancing age. We evaluated the relationship between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and arterial pulse wave velocity (aPWV) in an aging population. In randomly selected 876 subjects we studied the association between the vitamin D level and arterial stiffness. We used a Sphygmocor device to measure the aortic pulse velocity (PWV) to evaluate the arterial stiffness. There was a clearly negative trend in aortic PWV among 25-OH-D tertiles. The association between 25-0H-D and aortic PWV remained significant after adjustment for age, gender and other potential confounders; subjects in the first 25-OH-D tertile had adjusted odds ratio 1.9 (1.2–3.0) for having aortic PWV top tertile in multiple regression. Vitamin D levels are inversely associated with increased arterial stiffness in a normative aging population, irrespective of traditional risk factors burden. Further research is needed to clarify the role of vitamin D on arterial stiffness and whether supplemental vitamin D may play a role in prevention of cardiovascular disease or not.