Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) experience excess cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that is unexplained by traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in CKD and is… Click to show full abstract
Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) experience excess cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that is unexplained by traditional cardiovascular risk factors. Vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in CKD and is associated with increased cardiovascular mortality in both the general population and in CKD patients. Vitamin D supplementation is a reasonably safe and simple intervention and meta‐analyses of observational studies have suggested that vitamin D supplementation in CKD improves cardiovascular mortality. However, randomized controlled trials examining the impact of vitamin D supplementation in improving surrogate markers of cardiovascular structure and function remain inconclusive. This review investigates the impact of vitamin D supplementation on surrogate end‐points and cardiovascular events from trials in CKD; and discusses why results have been heterogenous, particularly critiquing the effect of different dosing regimens and the failure to take into account the implications of vitamin D supplementation in study participants with differing vitamin D binding protein genotypes.
               
Click one of the above tabs to view related content.