A team of physicians and researchers from Hospital da Luz Aveiro and the Biochemical Laboratory of the Institute of Molecular Medicine João Lobo Antunes (IMM) discovered that, in women in menopause , the percentage of vitamin D in the blood is related with factors that condition blood viscosity in the smaller vessels (or microcirculation), responsible for nutrition and oxygenation of tissues and organs. This discovery may explain the relation between low levels of vitamin D and osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases in menopausal women. The team of researchers integrates Paulo Luiz Farber (the coordinator), Ana Dias and Ana Cristina Pinho , all physicians at Hospital da Luz Aveiro, and also Teresa Freitas and Ana S. Silva-Herdade, from IMM, Diego Viggiano, from the Superior School of Health, Aveiro University, and Carlota Saldanha, from the Faculty of Medicine, Lisbon. It is known that calcium, vitamin D and resistance to insulin (which hinders the control of diabetes) are associated with osteoporosis and cardiovascular diseases during menopause. The team from Hospital da Luz Aveiro and the IMM set the goal of evaluating if the hemorheological parameters (that is, the characteristics of the blood flow and its components) related with blood viscosity in microcirculation are conditioned by the metabolism of calcium and the resistance to insulin. In microcirculation , blood viscosity depends on certain characteristics of the red blood cells. This study established that blood viscosity in microcirculation is worse, when vitamin D is low and in women with higher risk of pre-diabetes or diabetes. Other factors also found in this study to be related with blood viscosity are free ionized calcium and risk factors for pre-diabetes and diabetes. Other diseases, such as COVID-19 , are also associated with problems in microcirculation and are worse in people with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and low levels of vitamin D in the blood. This study was published in the scientific journal Clinical Hemorheological and Microcirculation. “Evaluation of hemorheological parameters as biomarkers of calcium metabolism and insulin resistance in postmenopausal women”
