Technically not a "vitamin," vitamin D is in a class by itself. Its metabolic product, calcitriol, is actually a secosteroid hormone that targets over 2000 genes (about 10% of the human genome) in the human body. Current research has implicated vitamin D deficiency as a major factor in the pathology of at least 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, chronic pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, muscle weakness, muscle wasting, birth defects, periodontal disease, and more.
Vitamin D's influence on key biological functions vital to one's health and well-being mandates that vitamin D no longer be ignored by the health care industry nor by individuals striving to achieve and maintain a greater state of health.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Vitamin D Dramatically Cuts Cancer Risk: Study
CTV.ca News Staff
Jun. 7 2007
A landmark new study is raising the tantalizing spectre that a simple and cheap vitamin supplement may offer a highly effective way of preventing cancer.
The research, published in the online edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, finds that a combination of vitamin D3 and calcium has a substantially marked effect on reducing cancer incidence.
The four-year study out of Creighton University in Nebraska found that women who regularly took vitamin D3 had a 60 percent reduction in cancer infections compared to a group taking placebos.
The study followed 1,179 healthy, women 55 years and older from rural eastern Nebraska between 2000 and 2005. Participants were randomly assigned to receive 1400-1500 mg of calcium alone, or supplemental calcium plus 1,100 IU vitamin D3, or placebo.
Among the 288 women taking placebo, 20 developed breast, colon, lung or another form of cancer. Among the 445 women taking just calcium, 17 developed cancer. But among the largest group -- the 446 women taking vitamin D daily -- just 13 developed cancer.
"What we found is that a vitamin D supplement decreased the cancer incidence in postmenopausal women by about 60 percent," lead investigator Joan Lappe, an associate professor of both medicine and nursing at Creighton University, told CTV News.
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