title: Dietary vitamin D and risk of heart failure in the Physicians' Health Study.
abstract: Experimental studies have demonstrated the role of vitamin D in key pathways related to cardiovascular health. While several studies have investigated the impact of vitamin D therapy on outcomes in subjects with prevalent heart failure, limited research exists on the relationship of dietary vitamin D consumption with the risk of heart failure. Thus, we sought to investigate whether dietary vitamin D consumption was associated with a lower risk of incident heart failure in a large prospective cohort of male physicians.
  
  
  
  We prospectively studied 19,635 males from the Physicians' Health Study. Dietary vitamin D information was obtained from a baseline food frequency questionnaire, and heart failure information was obtained by questionnaire and validated in a subsample. Mean age was 66.4 years. Median dietary vitamin D consumption was 200.4 IU and only 2.3% of the subjects used vitamin D supplements. After an average follow-up of 9.3 years, there were 858 new cases of heart failure identified. Higher intake of dietary vitamin D was not associated with incident heart failure in a multivariable adjusted model: hazard ratios (95% CI) of incident heart failure were 1.0 (reference), 1.29 (1.04-1.60), 1.17 (0.94-1.46), 1.22 (0.98-1.53), and 1.16 (0.92-1.46) from lowest to highest age- and energy-adjusted vitamin D quintile, respectively, after adjusting for age, BMI, race, exercise, alcohol use, smoking, calories, and prevalent atrial fibrillation (p for linear trend = 0.64).
  
  
  
  These data are consistent with a lack of an association between dietary vitamin D and incident heart failure in this population of professionally-employed middle-aged males.
authors.affiliation: Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology and Research Information Center and Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Jeremy
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Robbins
authors.affiliation: Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Petrone
authors.affiliation: Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology and Research Information Center and Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: J Michael
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Gaziano
authors.affiliation: Division of Aging, Department of Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology and Research Information Center and Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: ldjousse@rics.bwh.harvard.edu.
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Djoussé
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D000072001:Diet, Healthy; D019587:Dietary Supplements; D058620:Elder Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009250:NADP Transhydrogenases; D010349:Patient Compliance; D010820:Physicians; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012306:Risk; D057566:Self Report; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014807:Vitamin D / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D014807:Vitamin D; D009250:NADP Transhydrogenases
keywords: Cardiovascular disease; Diet; Epidemiology; Heart failure; Vitamin D