Key result
Vitamin D supplementation fails to reduce blood pressure despite observational links with hypertension.
Why the study?
Does vitamin D supplementation reduce blood pressure in patients with essential hypertension?
Does vitamin D supplementation reduce blood pressure in patients with essential hypertension?
Despite epidemiological links between vitamin D deficiency and high blood pressure, current evidence does not support routine vitamin D supplementation as an effective antihypertensive treatment.
Does not support routine vitamin D supplementation for hypertension; leaves open whether optimized RCT designs would demonstrate benefit.
The aim of this review is to investigate, whether there is a possible link between vitamin D supplementation and the reduction of blood pressure in hypertensive patients. The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system is known for being deeply involved in cardiovascular tonus and blood pressure regulation. Hence, many of the pharmaceutical antihypertensive drugs inhibit this system. Interestingly, experimental studies in mice have indicated that vitamin D supplementation significantly lowers renin synthesis and blood pressure. It is conceivable that similar mechanisms may be found in the human organism. Regarding this, large-scale cross-sectional studies suggest the serum 25(OH)D-level to be inversely correlated to the prevalence of hypertension. However, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have not found a clear association between vitamin D supplementation and improvements in hypertension. Nevertheless, the missing association of vitamin D and hypertension in clinical trials can be due to suboptimal study designs. There are hints that restoration of serum 25(OH)D levels during vitamin D therapy is essential to achieve possible beneficial cardiovascular effects. It is important to perform long-term trials with a short dose interval and a high bioavailability of supplementation. Taken together, more RCTs are required to further investigate if vitamin D can be beneficial for the reduction of blood pressure.
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Legarth et al. (2018) conducted a review in Essential hypertension and vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D supplementation vs. Placebo or lack of supplementation was evaluated. While epidemiological studies demonstrate an inverse correlation between serum vitamin D levels and hypertension prevalence, randomized controlled trials have not found a clear association between vitamin D supplementation and blood pressure reduction.
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