title: Vitamin D supplementation: a promising approach for the prevention and treatment of strokes.
abstract: Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent due to lifestyle and environmental factors which limit sunlight induced vitamin D production in the skin. This "pandemic" of vitamin D deficiency is of concern because low levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) have been associated with cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, infectious, autoimmune and malignant diseases. Epidemiological studies have largely but not consistently shown that vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for strokes. This is supported by associations of low 25(OH)D levels with cerebrovascular risk factors, in particular with arterial hypertension. Vitamin D has also been shown to exert neuroprotective, neuromuscular and osteoprotective effects which may reduce cognitive and functional impairments in poststroke patients. Hence, the current literature favours the notion that vitamin D supplementation is a promising approach for the prevention and treatment of strokes but accurate data from interventional studies are missing. Randomized controlled trials are therefore urgently needed to evaluate whether vitamin D supplementation reduces the incidence of strokes and improves the outcome of poststroke patients. We do, however, believe that currently published data on the multiple health benefits of vitamin D and the easy safe and inexpensive way by which it can be supplemented already argue for the prevention and treatment of vitamin D deficiency in order to reduce stroke associated morbidity and mortality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology and Nuclear Medicine, Medical University of Graz, Austria. stefan.pilz@chello.at
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pilz
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tomaschitz
authors.forename: Christiane
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Drechsler
authors.forename: Armin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zittermann
authors.forename: Jacqueline M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Dekker
authors.forename: Winfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: März
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019587:Dietary Supplements; D006801:Humans; D012307:Risk Factors; D020521:Stroke / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014807:Vitamin D / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000378:metabolism / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D014808:Vitamin D Deficiency / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D014807:Vitamin D