Vitamin D lowers cancer risk: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Cancer researchers urged people on
Wednesday to take more vitamin D to lower their risk of colon,
breast and ovarian cancer, saying studies showed a clear link.

“Our suggestion is for people to increase their intake,”
through diet or a vitamin supplement, Dr. Cedric Garland said
in a telephone interview.

Garland’s research team reviewed 63 studies, including
several large long-term ones, on the relationship between
vitamin D and certain types of cancer worldwide between 1966
and 2004.

He said the benefit of vitamin D was as clear as the
harmful link between smoking and lung cancer.

“There’s nothing that has this ability to prevent cancer,”
he said, urging governments and public health officials to do
more to fortify foods with vitamin D.

Garland is part of a University of California at San Diego
Moores Cancer Center team that published its findings this week
online in the American Journal of Public Health.

The paper concluded that vitamin D deficiency may account
for several thousand premature deaths from colon, breast,
ovarian and other cancers annually.

Vitamin D is found in milk, as well as in some fortified
orange juice, yogurt and cheeses, usually at around 100
international units (IU) a serving.

People might want to consider a vitamin supplement to raise
their intake to 1000 IUs per day, Garland said, adding that it
was well within the safety guidelines established by the
National Academy of Sciences.

The authors said that taking more vitamin D could be
especially important for people living in northern areas, which
receive less vitamin D from sunshine.

African Americans, who don’t produce as much of the vitamin
because of their skin pigment, could also benefit significantly
from a higher intake, the authors said.