ArticlePloS one2015
Is the Association between Vitamin D and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Confounded by Obesity? Evidence from the Andhra Pradesh Children and Parents Study (APCAPS).
Article in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of vitamin D supplementation on serum vitamin D levels and health outcomes in pediatric population with obesity/overweight: a systematic review and meta-analysis.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Pooled it
- Antioxidant Supplementation in Childhood Obesity: A Path to Improved Metabolic Health?Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The higher dietary inflammation is associated with a higher burden of multimorbidity of cardio-metabolic and mental health disorders in an urbanizing community of southern India: A cross-sectional analysis for the APCAPS cohort.Human nutrition & metabolism · 2024Article
- Vitamin D and cardiovascular diseases: A narrative review.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2024Review
- Assessment of Vitamin D Levels and Other Bone Related Biochemical Markers in Healthy Adults in Rural Population of Uttarakhand, India.Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB · 2023Article
- Six years' experience and trends of serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D concentration and the effect of vitamin DFrontiers in pharmacology · 2023Article
- Vitamin D Supplementation in the Assessment of Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Overweight and Obese Children.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Observational
- "Are We Feeding Them Enough?" Micronutrient Deficiency in Children Aged Six Months to Fourteen Years in India.Cureus · 2021Review
- Vitamin D, body mass composition and metabolic risk factors in healthy young Indians.Medical journal, Armed Forces India · 2021Article
- Personal exposure to particulate air pollution and vascular damage in peri-urban South India.Environment international · 2020Article
- Vitamin D and Cardiovascular Risk: which Implications in Children?International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Review
- Association of serum 25-Hydroxy vitamin D with total and regional adiposity and cardiometabolic traits.PloS one · 2020Article
- Association of Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Level With Metabolic Phenotypes of Obesity in Children and Adolescents: The CASPIAN-V Study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2020Article
- Associations between Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and Lipids, Lipoprotein Cholesterols, and Homocysteine.North American journal of medical sciences · 2016Article
- Causes of changes in carotid intima-media thickness: a literature review.Cardiovascular ultrasound · 2015Review
- Low levels of Vitamin D an emerging risk for cardiovascular diseases: A review.International journal of health sciencesReview
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
17 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEvidence of an association between serum vitamin D and cardiovascular disease risk is inconsistent and comes predominantly from studies in high-income settings. We assessed the association between serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D) and cardiovascular disease risk factors in a population of young Indian adults.
methodsCross-sectional analyses of data from APCAPS (Andhra Pradesh Children and Parents Study); a prospective birth cohort study in rural south India. Participants were 1038 (40.3% females) adults aged 18-24 years. Main outcome measures were blood pressures, fasting serum lipids (cholesterols and triglycerides), fasting glucose, insulin, measures of arterial stiffness (aortic augmentation index and aortic pulse wave velocity (aPWV)), carotid intima-media thickness, body mass index (BMI) and body fat (dual X-ray absorptiometry).
resultsVitamin D deficiency (≤20ng/ml) was observed in 41.1% of this lean (mean BMI: 19.5) and active (mean minutes of moderate or vigorous physical activity per day: 186) population. Vitamin D deficiency was associated with higher median body fat in both males (15.9% body fat in vitamin D deficient males vs. 14.6% in non-deficient males, p<0.05) and females (29.1% body fat in vitamin D deficient females vs. 27.8% in non-deficient females, p<0.05) but no associations were observed between vitamin D deficiency and mean BMI or median fat mass index (FMI). Except a weak inverse association with fasting insulin in males, there was no clear association between serum vitamin D levels and cardiovascular disease risk factors in fully adjusted models.
conclusionsWe did not find clear evidence for an association between serum vitamin D levels and cardiovascular disease risk factors. Our results, consistent with the limited evidence from randomised trials of vitamin D supplementation and Mendelian randomisation experiments, suggest that the postulated link between serum vitamin D and cardiovascular disease may be non-causal. Instead, it may be attributable to confounding by lifestyle factors such as obesity and physical inactivity which may provide more fruitful targets for cardiovascular disease prevention.
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