Vitamin D levels linked to breast cancer progression

Vitamin D levels linked to breast cancer progression

17/10/2006 - Increasing vitamin D levels may help curb the development and progression of breast cancer, suggests a small study from Imperial College London.

“This report, while being an observational study, clearly shows that circulating vitamin D levels are lower in patients with advanced breast cancer than in those with early breast cancer,” wrote lead author Dr Carlo Palmieri in the Journal of Clinical Pathology (doi.10.1136/jcp.2006.042747).

Both forms of the vitamin, D2 and D3, are hydroxylated in the liver and kidneys to form 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the non-active ‘storage' form, and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, the biologically active form that is tightly controlled by the body. Scientists use serum 25- hydroxyvitamin D levels as a measure of vitamin D status.

This observation adds to an ever-growing body of evidence linking vitamin D status with incidence and risk of various cancers, including breast, colorectal and prostate. Indeed, the link between vitamin D intake and protection from cancer is not and dates from the 1940s when Frank Apperly demonstrated a link between latitude and deaths from cancer, and suggested that sunlight gave “a relative cancer immunity.”