Low vitamin D predicts more severe strokes, poor health post-stroke

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/aha-lvd020415.php

Public Release: 11-Feb-2015
Low vitamin D predicts more severe strokes, poor health post-stroke
American Stroke Association Meeting Report Abstract W MP62
American Heart Association

Stroke patients with low vitamin D levels were found to be more likely than those with normal vitamin D levels to suffer severe strokes and have poor health months after stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2015.

Low vitamin D has been associated in past studies with neurovascular injury (damage to the major blood vessels supplying the brain, brainstem, and upper spinal cord).

"Many of the people we consider at high risk for developing stroke have low vitamin D levels. Understanding the link between stroke severity and vitamin D status will help us determine if we should treat vitamin D deficiency in these high-risk patients," said Nils Henninger, M.D., senior study author and assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry at University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worchester.

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