Vitamin D helps immune cells prevent atherosclerosis and diabetes

Altered signaling through the vitamin D receptor on certain immune cells may play a role in causing the chronic inflammation that leads to cardiometabolic disease, the combination of type 2 diabetes and heart disease that is the most common cause of illness and death in Western populations. "Because low vitamin D levels are associated with diabetes and heart disease, we looked at the connections between vitamin D, immune function, and these disease states," says senior author Carlos Bernal-Mizrachi, of the Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis.