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According to a new study, decreased levels of Vitamin D can double the risk of developing heart disease in people who are suffering from diabetes.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that diabetes patients having lower levels of vitamin D are incapable of processing the cholesterol in the normal way because of which builds up in their blood vessels, thereby increasing the risk of heart attack and stroke.
The researchers have come up with a way to interlace low vitamin D levels and heart diseases. According to them, this problem can be fixed by boosting the Vitamin D levels.
"Vitamin D inhibits the uptake of cholesterol by cells called macrophages," said principal investigator Dr Carlos Bernal-Mizrachi, a Washington University endocrinologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
"When people are deficient in vitamin D, the macrophage cells eat more cholesterol, and they can’t get rid of it”, he added.
“The macrophages get clogged with cholesterol and become what scientists call foam cells, which are one of the earliest markers of atherosclerosis," Bernal-Mizrachi said.
According to the study, the vitamin D has the control of the signalling pathways that are linked both to uptake and to clearance of cholesterol in macrophages.
"Cholesterol is transported through the blood attached to lipoproteins such as LDL, the ''bad'' cholesterol," Bernal-Mizrachi explains.
"As it is stimulated by oxygen radicals in the vessel wall, LDL becomes oxidated, and macrophages eat it uncontrollably. LDL cholesterol then clogs the macrophages, and that''s how atherosclerosis begins," he added.
According to him, this process gets a boost when the diabetic suffers from low levels of Vitamin D. He also added that, Type 2 Diabetics are more to suffer from low levels of Vitamin D.
The findings have been published in the journal, Circulation.
