Impact evidence of the vitamin D status in hypertensive patients in Morocco

Vitamin D status in hypertensive patients

Abstract

Vitamin D deficiency is a hot topic as it affects about 50% of the world's population. Beyond its extra-osseous effects, notably on the cardiovascular system. In recent years many epidemiological studies have looked at the role of vitamin D status in modulating blood pressure. It appears that there is an inverse association between serum vitamin D levels and blood pressure. It is in this context that our prospective study on the Moroccan population allows having global knowledge of the association between vitamin D and arterial hypertension. This is a descriptive study of vitamin D status in Moroccan hypertensive patients in whom blood samples were taken for serum 25(OH)D determination. The data collected were anonymised and entered into SPSS software. X2 and ANOVA tests were used to investigate the existence of correlations between vitamin D status and age, age at menopause, body mass index, sex and hypertension.  1015 hypertensive patients were included in this study with a female predominance of 84.2%, mainly over 50 years old in 80.8%, of whom 31.5% were overweight or obese, 13.2% had a hypertensive parent and 70.8% had vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D regulates at least 3% of the human genome with receptors throughout the body, including vascular smooth muscle cells, vascular endothelium and cardiomyocytes, where it acts by vasodilation and by blocking the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) to lower blood pressure. There is a relationship between low serum vitamin D levels and high blood pressure. Our study concluded that there is an association between hypovitaminosis D and the pathology of hypertension. However, further randomised studies are needed and in the meantime, clinicians could propose it in the therapeutic arsenal of Moroccan hypertensive patients.