Study finds vitamin D3 cuts second heart attack risk in half (Life Extension)
A randomized trial found that giving vitamin D3 to individuals who had experienced a heart attack reduced the risk of a second event by half in comparison with participants who received standard care without vitamin D3.
The TARGET-D trial included 630 patients from the Intermountain Health healthcare system in Salt Lake City who had a heart attack within a month of enrollment between April 2017 and May 2023. Researchers compared cardiovascular event risks between 314 participants who were not given vitamin D3 and 316 participants who were given vitamin D3 with a targeted blood level of 40 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL).
"Previous clinical trial research on vitamin D tested the potential impact of the same vitamin D dose for all participants without checking their blood levels first," principal investigator Heidi T. May, PhD, MSPH, FAHA, of Intermountain Health explained. "We took a different approach. We checked each participant's vitamin D levels at enrollment and throughout the study, and we adjusted their dose as needed to bring and maintain them in a range of 40-80 ng/mL."
Among participants who received targeted vitamin D3 treatment, over half required an initial daily dose of 5,000 international units (IU). (The current dose recommended by the Food and Nutrition Board at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for adults is 600 to 800 IU.) (EDIT: Recently exposed as a gross NIH error...find your 40-80 ng/mL dosage only with blood tests).
Participants were followed until March 2025, during which time 107 major cardiovascular events, including heart attack, heart failure hospitalization, stroke or death occurred. While there was no difference between the groups in the outcome of major adverse cardiovascular events, second heart attack was reduced by half among those who received targeted vitamin D management. "We observed no adverse outcomes when giving patients higher doses of vitamin D3," Dr May noted. "We're excited with these results but know we have further work to do to validate these findings."
The findings were presented November 9, at the 2025 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.1 |
