Vitamin D Reduces Stroke Risk

A study out of Honolulu, Hawaii, published in the AHA Journal - Stroke, looked at the stroke incidence of 8006 Japanese-American men over the course of 34 years (a longitudinal study - or "repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time").

What they found was that over the 34 years, 960 of the subjects became stroke sufferers. What researchers discovered when examining the variables in the data, is that Vitamin D levels in the stroke patients were, on average, significantly lower than in those who didn't have a stroke:

"Age-adjusted rates of incident stroke were significantly higher in the lowest dietary vitamin D quartile compared with the highest. Using Cox regression, adjusting for age, total kilocalories, body mass index, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, pack-years smoking, physical activity index, serum cholesterol, and alcohol intake, those in the lowest quartile had a significantly increased risk of incident strokewith the highest as the reference. We found no significant associations between dietary vitamin D and hemorrhagic stroke"
Note that some paranthetical comments were removed in this quote.

As luck would have it, I have ramped up my Vitamin D intake to 4000IU/day to try and combat my insomnia issues (I heard it might help - so at this point I'm trying everything). Regardless of how it changes my sleep, I may now continue to take it based on this information..