If your heart stops and you suffer cardiac arrest at home, you only have about a 10 percent chance of survival. But even if you live, if you are low in one particular vitamin, your brain may never function normally again.
The vitamin that can save your brain: vitamin D.
People who survive cardiac arrest are at serious risk of suffering catastrophic neurological damage and often die within six months of the heart attack.
If you’re low on vitamin D at the time your heart stops, your risk for significant brain damage is seven times higher than for someone who has adequate vitamin D.
“In patients resuscitated after sudden cardiac arrest, recovery of neurological function is very important, as well as survival,” says researcher Jin Wi. “Vitamin D deficiency has been reported to be related to the risk of having various cardiovascular diseases, including sudden cardiac arrest. We investigated the association of vitamin D deficiency with neurologic outcome after sudden cardiac arrest, a topic on which there is no information so far.”
In their research on more than four dozen people who had suffered cardiac arrest, the Korean scientists found that two-thirds of the people who were low in vitamin D suffered poor neurological and brain function after the heart attack. About 80 percent of the people who had enough vitamin D had good neurological results after they recovered.
In addition, 29 percent of the cardiac arrest survivors with low vitamin D died within six months. None of the people with plenty of vitamin D had died in that time.
“Our findings suggest that vitamin D deficiency should be avoided, especially in people with a high risk of sudden cardiac arrest,” warns Wi. “People are at higher risk if they have a personal or family history of heart disease including heart rhythm disorders, congenital heart defects and cardiac arrest. Other risk factors for cardiac arrest include smoking, obesity, diabetes, a sedentary lifestyle, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and drinking too much alcohol.”
To get plenty of vitamin D as an insurance policy to protect your body and brain even if a heart attack strikes, get out there in the sun now that it’s getting higher in the sky so your skin can make some.
But if you work inside and can’t get out much when the sun is highest in the sky, try to eat small, fatty cold-water fish like mackerel and sardines. They’re loaded with vitamin D and have more than eggs, beef liver and fortified milk and cheese combined. And they are very high in the omega-3 fats that can keep your heart healthy in the first place.
