At one of my last endocrinologist visits, the doctor suggested I have my vitamin D levels tested, stating that vitamin D deficiency is nearly universal these days. What!? This is not Seattle and I don’t just live in the Sunshine State, I play tennis, golf, run, walk the dogs, and swim, all in our super-strength UV rays. I couldn’t possibly be deficient in the so-called sunshine vitamin. Wrong!
Apparently I’m quite deficient. I’m supposed to take 2,000 IU of D3 until I get my stored levels back up to at least 20 ng/mL. Simple enough, right? Especially given I just buy the 2,000 IU capsules, which translates into exactly one capsule a day—not a big deal. Oh but it is!
I’m lucky if I remember to pop those capsules twice a week. When I do, I try to make up for missed days in one quick series of swallows: four or even five capsules with breakfast. The doctor said I can safely double or triple my serving size to make up for my vitamin pill-popping negligence. I had nearly concluded that it’s hopeless however, that I am a complete failure at popping vitamins on a regular basis, the only way they do their intended job. And then the news …
One study (summarized here) conducted by a team of English and Canadian scientists, revealed a detailed map of the molecular interactions between vitamin D and certain genes. The map showed extensive connections between the vitamin and certain genes associated with cancer and autoimmune diseases. “Genes involved in autoimmune disease and cancer were regulated by vitamin D,” study author Dr. Sreeram Ramagopalan of Oxford University told WebMD.
In another study, women with plasma concentrations of vitamin D less than 20 ng/mL were eight times more likely to be diagnosed with regional or distant spread of cancer when compared with women who had sufficient levels of the vitamin, after statistical adjustments, according to Susan Steck, PhD, MPH, of the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Read more about it here.
Back in February of 2010, it was reported that vitamin D can actually kill human cancer cells. Watch vitamin D kill human breast cancer cells in a petri dish here. JoEllen Welsh treated human (not rodent) breast cancer cells with a potent form of vitamin D and reports that within a few days of doing so, half the cancer cells shrivel up and die. Welsh says the vitamin has the same effect as drugs such as Tamoxifen, a chemotherapy drug used to treat breast cancer.
As for rodents, the vitamin’s effects were even more dramatic on their breast cancer cells. After several weeks of treatment, the tumors in the mice shrank by an average of more than 50 percent, and some tumors even disappeared.
Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News’ senior health and medical editor cautions that people shouldn’t read too much into these laboratory studies and points out the positive effects in a petri dish or in mice may not translate into similar results in humans.
So here I am, a previvor from three generations of breast cancer, having gone to drastic and bold lengths to reduce my risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Hopeful? Extremely. Confused and skeptical?
Initially, upon reading about the above studies, I was seeing the $$$$, thinking this was just one more opportunity for some dietary supplement or pharmaceutical company to profit, but I kept reading …
Among so-called vitamins, vitamin D is said to be in a class by itself in that it behaves more like a hormone. After being made in the skin, it travels through our bloodstream, into the liver and kidney, where it is activated as a key steroid hormone called calcitriol. From there, it goes to the intestines, bones and other tissues. Vitamin D’s active form is thought to interact with almost every cell in the body directly or indirectly, targeting up to two thousand genes, or about 6 percent of the human genome. Apparently, almost every cell and tissue in our body has vitamin D receptors, which tells me this is one important nutrient.
