A lack of vitamin D has been found in some studies to play an unrecognized role in death among people suffering from a variety of medical problems, including heart disease and cancer.
Now researchers say they have evidence that even in the general population, having too little of the vitamin appears to be associated with a higher risk of death.
Writing in The Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers say they looked at the vitamin D levels and death rates of more than 13,000 people over a period of more than six years.
Those who fell in the lowest quarter of vitamin D levels had a 26 percent higher risk of death from all causes than those in the top quarter, found the study, which was led by Dr. Michal L. Melamed of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
About 41 percent of men and 53 percent of women in the United States have levels of the vitamin that are considered too low.
The researchers pointed to other studies looking at the role in disease of vitamin D, which can be found in milk and also comes from exposure to the sun. Researchers have found, for example, that deaths from cardiovascular disease are higher in the winter, when less sun leads to lower levels of vitamin D.
The question now, the study says, is whether taking supplements to raise levels of the vitamin would lower the risk of death.
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