Vitamin D and calcium cuts cancer incide
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| Fri, 06-08-2007 - 4:53pm |
http://medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=73621
Vitamin D And Calcium Cuts Cancer Risk In Older Women, New Study Says The results showed that women in the Calcium plus Vit D group had a 60 per cent drop in their cancer risk over the four years compared to the women in the placebo group.
In order to eliminate the possibility that some women may have started the trial with undiagnosed cancers, the researchers re-analysed the results leaving out the first year's figures. This showed an even bigger 77 per cent reduction in cancer risk in the Calcium plus Vit D group compared with the placebo group.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/85/6/1586
Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial
Background: Numerous observational studies have found supplemental calcium and vitamin D to be associated with reduced risk of common cancers. However, interventional studies to test this effect are lacking.
Objective: The purpose of this analysis was to determine the efficacy of calcium alone and calcium plus vitamin D in reducing incident cancer risk of all types.
Design: This was a 4-y, population-based, double-blind, randomized placebo-controlled trial. The primary outcome was fracture incidence, and the principal secondary outcome was cancer incidence. The subjects were 1179 community-dwelling women randomly selected from the population of healthy postmenopausal women aged >55 y in a 9-county rural area of Nebraska centered at latitude 41.4°N. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive 1400–1500 mg supplemental calcium/d alone (Ca-only), supplemental calcium plus 1100 IU vitamin D3/d (Ca + D), or placebo.
Results: When analyzed by intention to treat, cancer incidence was lower in the Ca + D women than in the placebo control subjects (P < 0.03). With the use of logistic regression, the unadjusted relative risks (RR) of incident cancer in the Ca + D and Ca-only groups were 0.402 (P = 0.01) and 0.532 (P = 0.06), respectively. When analysis was confined to cancers diagnosed after the first 12 mo, RR for the Ca + D group fell to 0.232 (CI: 0.09, 0.60; P < 0.005) but did not change significantly for the Ca-only group. In multiple logistic regression models, both treatment and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations were significant, independent predictors of cancer risk.
Conclusions: Improving calcium and vitamin D nutritional status substantially reduces all-cancer risk in postmenopausal women. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00352170.
The Vitamin D council have links to sources of high strength Vitamin D3
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/ Those unfamiliar with Vit d3 may not know that it stays in your body for some time so if you take 2 capsules a week each 5000iu that is 10,000iu a week which is equivalent to 1400iu/d
This Risk Assessment for Vitamin D http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/85/1/6 shows up to 10,000iu/d is perfectly safe although as your body uses around 4000iu daily acquiring more than 4000iu daily from sunlight, food, supplements seems unnecessary.
This trial using 4000iu daily http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=15260882 found it was helpful for improving feelings of well-being.

I feel that perhaps I ought to add a little more to the above post as it doesn't make clear that research occured in Omaha USA lat 42. UK readers need to be aware that is 800mls nearer the Equator and they will get more days of effective UVB Vitamin d producing sunlight than the UK gets so base levels of Vitamin D will mostly be higher than in the UK. USA/CANADA also fortify milk, each glass will give 100iu so most people will be obtaining 200iu/d more from diet than would be possible in the UK. You need to bear that in mind when determining how much Vitamin D to take daily.
Circulating Vitamin D3 and 25-hydroxyvitamin D in Humans: An Important Tool to Define Adequate Nutritional Vitamin D Status http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=17218096 this paper by Hollis et al shows that the amount of Vitamin d3 we need circulating in our bodies needs to be about 25% higher than was previously thought to be the minimum safe level.