Vitamin D – Cancer

Vitamin D is showing an influential role in the prevention of breast, colon and other types of cancer.

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What do scientific studies say about it?

Prevention for Pre- and Post-Menopausal Breast Cancer

Vitamin D has been associated with breast cancer prevention, according to one study published in the International Journal of Cancer. This study compared plasma (the watery component of blood) calcifediol levels (aka 25-hydroxyvitamin D, calcidiol, or "25(OH)D", a chemical produced from Vitamin D3 by the liver). Calcifediol is the best known, most sensitive indicator of one's vitamin D status. An inverse relationship was seen between the risk of getting breast cancer and plasma calcifediol levels. In other words, the higher the calcifediol (vitamin D indicators), the lower the risk of breast cancer in the premenopausal subjects. The study indicated that their findings "support a protective effect of vitamin D for premenopausal breast cancer"¹

In a related study of postmenopausal women the findings were similar "with a stronger inverse association in women with low serum 25(OH)D concentrations (<50 nM) [i.e. the lower--particularly less than 50 nM/L--the vitamin D indicators in the blood, the higher the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer]."² In other words, the lower the amount of vitamin D in your blood the more at risk women are to get breast cancer. See Vitamin D - How Much?

Colon, Rectal, Renal, Ovarian and others...Vitamin D/Calcium Importance

The journal Anticancer Research published a report discussing how low vitamin D intake and insufficient calcium intake increase risk of various types of cancers. Using ultraviolet light (UV-B) exposure as an index of production by the skin of vitamin D3, scientists have demonstrated a "highly significant" inverse relationship between UV-B exposure and mortality rates from 15 different types of cancer. Of those 15 included 7 of them--namely colon, rectal, breast, gastric, endometrial, renal and ovarian--also showed a significant inverse relationship between incidence and oral calcium intake, i.e. the lower the oral calcium intake, the higher the number of cancer cases. Further, lung and endometrial and multiple myeloma (plasma cell cancer) were said to be "calcium and vitamin D sensitive".³

Tumor Area, Incidence and Multiplicity in mice with Colon Cancer

The data about decreased tumor area, incidence and multiplicity is based on studies performed on mice. However the mice used provide decent models of human disease, including colon carcinogenesis. In one study a combination of calcium and vitamin D supplementation resulted in a "significant decrease in both colon tumor incidence and multiplicity"⁴ In a second study the researches concluded that vitamin D had "chemopreventive effects"; tumor area had "significantly" decreased in the entire gastrointestinal tract [important distinction between that and just the colon]. To be clear, tumor area, in this study, did not decrease in the large intestine. However the researchers finish saying that experimental evidence suggests that vitamin D and calcium supplementation may decrease colon cancer incidence not to mention play a role in other diseases.⁵

See Also

References

1. Abbas S, Chang-Claude J, Linseisen J. Plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D and premenopausal breast cancer risk in a German case-control study. Int J Cancer. 2009 Jan 1;124(1):250-5. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18839430)

2. Abbas S, Linseisen J, Slanger T, Kropp S, Mutschelknauss EJ, Flesch-Janys D, Chang-Claude J. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and risk of post-menopausal breast cancer--results of a large case-control study. Carcinogenesis. 2008 Jan;29(1):93-9. Epub 2007 Oct 31. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17974532)

3. Peterlik M, Grant WB, Cross HS. Calcium, vitamin D and cancer. Anticancer Res. 2009 Sep;29(9):3687-98. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19667166)

4. Newmark HL, Yang K, Kurihara N, Fan K, Augenlicht LH, Lipkin M. Western-style diet-induced colonic tumors and their modulation by calcium and vitamin D in C57Bl/6 mice: a preclinical model for human sporadic colon cancer. Carcinogenesis. 2009 Jan;30(1):88-92. Epub 2008 Nov 18.

5. Harris, DM, Go VLW. Vitamin D and Colon Carcinogenesis. The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr. 134:3463S-3471S, December 2004.