Continued
But researchers have now identified at least 18 types of cancer that are more common among people who don't get enough vitamin D, including such common ones as breast, lung and prostate. (Other cancers that have been linked to vitamin D: bladder, esophageal, gastric, ovarian, rectal, renal, uterine, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, cervical, gallbladder, laryngeal, oral, pancreatic, Hodgkin's lymphoma and colon.) They've learned that prostate cancer typically strikes men who work indoors four years earlier than it occurs among men who work outdoors. And they suspect that higher rates, and more aggressive cases, of prostate cancer among African Americans occur because black skin doesn't efficiently absorb the ultraviolet B (UVB) rays that trigger vitamin D production. In Africa, black skin does a great job of absorbing UVB. The weaker rays farther north just don't make it through often enough, leaving African Americans more likely than whites to run low on vitamin D. The same thing may explain why breast cancer tends to be more aggressive and more frequently fatal among African American women than it is among white women.
Can D Cure? (Consult your doctor)
Even after cancer strikes, the vitamin D our bodies make in the summer helps fight the disease. A study at Harvard found that mortality rates were 40 percent higher among lung cancer patients operated on in the winter than among those who had surgery in the summer and had high levels of D from sun or diet. This year, a British study found that survival rates there are highest among cancer patients diagnosed in the summer and fall. And last year in Norway researchers found higher survival rates among young people with Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosed in the autumn.
Benefits aren't limited to D from the sun. In Canada, patients given vitamin D along with chemotherapy had fewer side effects and developed fewer thromboses (blood clots), serious complications of treatment, than those who got a placebo with chemo.
How can a mere vitamin harbor such amazing powers? For starters, D isn't really a vitamin. In the body, it is transformed into a benevolent hormone, shoring up our bones, regulating cell growth and helping prevent the kind of wild cell proliferation that leads to cancer. "Almost every tissue and cell in the body has receptors for vitamin D, which means that every tissue and cell needs vitamin D to function maximally," says Michael F. Holick, MD, a vitamin D researcher at Boston University.
Benefits aren't limited to D from the sun. In Canada, patients given vitamin D along with chemotherapy had fewer side effects and developed fewer thromboses (blood clots), serious complications of treatment, than those who got a placebo with chemo.
Page 1
