Low Vitamin D Levels, Doubles the Risk of Stroke in Caucasians

Are Your Vitamin D Levels Measuring Up?

I advise nearly everyone to get a Vitamin D checkup. Testing involves a simply blood you can order from the comfort of your home and can reveal potential life-saving information. Vitamin D is a very powerful multi-dimensional nutrient that nourishes our bodies in many unique ways. Often vitamin D is called the "Sunshine" vitamin which makes it extremely useful for those living in the colder northern climates and those who spent too much time indoors.

Why Is Vitamin D Useful for Strokes?

Vitamin D has beneficial effects far beyond the bone benefits that are typically touted. Vitamin D is the only known substrate for a potent, pleiotropic (meaning it produces multiple effects), repair and maintenance seco-steroid hormone that serves multiple gene-regulatory functions in your body.

Every cell in your body has its own DNA library that contains information needed to deal with virtually every kind of stimulus it may encounter, and the master key to enter this library is activated vitamin D. This is why vitamin D functions in so many different tissues, and affects such a large number of different diseases and health conditions. So far, scientists have found about 3,000 genes that are upregulated by vitamin D.

Not only is vitamin D known to help reduce your risk of arterial stiffness, a major risk factor for stroke, but it can also:

• Increase in your body's natural anti-inflammatory cytokines
• Suppress vascular calcification
• Inhibit vascular smooth muscle growth

See the full story at Mercola.com.....