I can see this is going to be a Vitamin D year. According to an article at NursingTimes.net, Vitamin D deficiency is now being linked to high blood pressure. They are now saying pre-menopausal women who have a vitamin D deficiency are significantly more likely to develop high blood pressure in mid-life.

A study conducted at the University of Michigan School of Public Health studied 559 women between the ages of 24 to 44. The researchers took annual blood pressure measurements and Vitamin D levels were also measured, once in 1993 and then compared with systolic blood pressure measurements taken in 2007.

The researchers found that women who had a vitamin D deficiency in 1993 had three times the risk of developing systolic hypertension 15 years later compared to women who had normal levels of vitamin D.

Initially, the study revealed that 80 percent of the women were deficient in vitamin D intake, while 6 percent had high blood pressure. While no link was established at the time, researchers reviewed data collected in 2008 showing that 25 percent of the vitamin D deficient women had high blood pressure and determined that the incidence of high blood pressure was three times higher for women who had vitamin D deficiency in 1993.

The study did not show that increased vitamin D intake during the 15-year period would have affected the results, as the study did not monitor the women’s intake of the vitamin.

“This study differs from others because we are looking over the course of 15 years, a longer follow-up than many studies. Our results indicate that early vitamin D deficiency may increase the long term risk of high blood pressure in women at mid-life,” the researchers said last week at the American Heart Association’s annual high blood pressure research conference in Chicago, Illinois.

The U.S. National Library of Medicine reports that the 25-hydroxy vitamin D test is the most accurate way to measure the amount of the nutrient in the body.