Vitamin D doesn't protect against cancer
Recent research confirms that men's prostrate cancer risk has no relationship to how much vitamin D they have in their blood.
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Recent research confirms that men's prostrate cancer risk has no relationship to how much vitamin D they have in their blood.
Despite the widespread notion that vitamin D insufficiency is an important risk factor for prostate cancer, this theory has not been substantiated by results from the majority of published prospective studies.
Scientists have been investigating whether insufficient vitamin D boosts prostate cancer risk ever since a 1990 study linked higher rates of the disease to lower sunlight exposure (which triggers vitamin D production in the body). However, while experiments in the lab and animals have supported such a relationship, investigations in humans have not.
To investigate the association in a wider population, researchers looked at men from seven different European countries. The analysis compared 652 men who developed prostate cancer after 4 years of follow-up to 752 men who did not.
It was found that men with the highest blood levels of vitamin D were actually 28 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than the men with the lowest levels but this wasn't a significant difference from a statistical standpoint - meaning it could have occurred by chance. When the researchers analysed different subgroups of the study participants based on their cancer stage, body mass index, and other factors, there was still no association between levels of vitamin D and prostate cancer.
Despite the widespread notion that vitamin D insufficiency is an important risk factor for prostate cancer, this theory has not been substantiated by results from the majority of published prospective studies.
Scientists have been investigating whether insufficient vitamin D boosts prostate cancer risk ever since a 1990 study linked higher rates of the disease to lower sunlight exposure (which triggers vitamin D production in the body). However, while experiments in the lab and animals have supported such a relationship, investigations in humans have not.
To investigate the association in a wider population, researchers looked at men from seven different European countries. The analysis compared 652 men who developed prostate cancer after 4 years of follow-up to 752 men who did not.
It was found that men with the highest blood levels of vitamin D were actually 28 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than the men with the lowest levels but this wasn't a significant difference from a statistical standpoint - meaning it could have occurred by chance. When the researchers analysed different subgroups of the study participants based on their cancer stage, body mass index, and other factors, there was still no association between levels of vitamin D and prostate cancer.
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