Could Vitamin B6 Protect Heart Disease Patients from Sudden Death

Coronary artery disease (also known as ischemic heart disease) occurs when cholesterol plaque builds up in arteries inside the heart stiffening them and reducing the volume of blood supplied to the heart muscle. It includes a group of diseases that include stable angina, unstable angina, myocardial infarction, and sudden cardiac death. It is the leading cause of death worldwide and the first symptom is often a heart attack.

Researchers in the Department of Heart Disease at the University of Bergen in Norway studied Vitamin B6 activity in 4131 patients with stable angina and in 3665 patients who had a heart attack. Vitamin B6 metabolites were strongly connected to survival. In stable angina patients lower levels of B6 metabolites were more important for predicting death than strong-predictive risk factors such as inflammation in the heart, diabetes, smoking or high blood pressure increasing death risk by 45%. In heart attack survivors low B6 activity predicted increased risk of sudden death by 31%. The study is published in the June 2016 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.