Vitamin D supplementation is effective cancer prevention

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Scientists from Northwestern and Harvard Universities have found that taking vitamin D at the recommended doses halves the risk of developing pancreatic cancer.

After making appropriate calculations, it was found that people who took vitamin D daily at the recommended dose of 400 IU (international units) in the United States had a 43% lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer than those who did not take it. People who took less than 150 IU of vitamin D daily had a 22% lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer, scientists say. At the same time, increasing the dose over 400 IU did not bring additional benefits.

Vitamin D was previously known to play an important role in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer and in the prevention of breast and colon cancer, said co-lead Halseyen Skinner. Recent studies have shown that normal and tumor tissue of the pancreas contains high levels of an enzyme that converts the inactive form of vitamin D (25-hydroxyvitamin D) into the active form (1,25-hydroxyvitamin D). In addition, vitamin D was found to inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells, the scientist said.

In the near future, the researchers plan to find out if other sources of vitamin D intake - solar radiation and food products (fish, eggs, liver, fortified milk) - affect the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, Skinner said.