Association of 25-hydroxyvitamin D with HDL-cholesterol and other cardiovascular risk biomarkers in subjects with non-cardiac chest pain

BACKGROUND: Chest pain is a serious symptom that is routinely investigated as a sign of coronary artery disease. Non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) is indistinguishable from ischemic chest pain and both are considered serious and receive similar medical investigations. Although NCCP is not associated with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), patients with NCCP may become anxious and frightened from developing coronary events. So, it will be valuable to improve modifiable cardiovascular risk factors in such subjects to reduce fear from CVDs. Because vitamin D deficiency was considered as a possible modifiable cardiovascular risk factor, our aim was to investigate association between serum vitamin D and cardiovascular risk variables in subjects with NCCP. METHODS: A cross-sectional study involved 104 subjects who underwent cardiac catheterization that did not reveal any cardiac origin for their chest pain. 25-hydroxyvitamin D was measured by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay, glucose was measured by hexokinase method, hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) was measured by turbidimetric inhibition immunoassay and lipid profile was measured by enzymatic colorimetric assays. RESULTS: High density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was significantly higher in subjects with sufficient vitamin D compared to those with insufficient or deficient vitamin D (p-value< 0.01). 25-hydroxyvitamin D was positively associated with HDL-C (p-value< 0.01) and inversely associated with HbA1c (p-value = 0.02). 25-hydroxyvitamin D was not significantly correlated with other cardiovascular biomarkers including blood pressure, glucose, and other components of lipid profile (p-values> 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: low serum vitamin D could be involved in reducing HDL-C and increasing HbA1c and thus it may increase cardiovascular risk in subjects with NCCP.