2023-05-11 14:38:00
Cancer researchers: Taking vitamin D reduces mortality
The German Cancer Research Center, which is also represented in Dresden, found out that the effectiveness of vitamin D depends on the correct dosage.
2 Min.
Daily intake of vitamin D reduces mortality in cancer patients. © SZ-Archiv
Dresden/Heidelberg.
Vitamin D deficiency is widespread worldwide and is particularly common in cancer patients. On average, around 15 percent of German adults have vitamin D blood levels below the threshold for a pronounced vitamin D deficiency.
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Possible effects of vitamin D administration and the development of cancer have already been investigated in numerous studies. “According to the current study situation, vitamin D3 intake probably does not protect once morest developing cancer, but might reduce the likelihood of dying from cancer,” says Ben Schöttker, epidemiologist at the German Cancer Research Center. “However, previous studies on cancer mortality have provided very different results.” In this respect, the reasons for this have been investigated.
For this purpose, a team led by Ben Schöttker carried out a systematic literature search in which 14 studies with a total of almost 105,000 participants were identified. The researchers only considered studies of the highest quality.
Better daily vitamin D
No statistically significant results were found in the summary of all 14 studies. However, if the studies were divided according to whether vitamin D3 was taken daily in low doses or as a rarely administered, high single dose, there was a big difference.
In the four studies with the high single doses, which were between 60,000 and 120,000 international units (IU) monthly or less, there was no effect on cancer mortality. In contrast, in the summary of the ten studies with daily low doses of 400 to 4000 IU, the researchers determined a statistically significant reduction in cancer mortality of twelve percent.
“We observed this reduction following untargeted vitamin D3 administration to people with and without vitamin D deficiency. We can therefore assume that the effect is significantly higher for those people who actually have a vitamin D deficiency,” says Ben Schöttker. He explains the better effectiveness of the daily vitamin D3 doses by the more regular bioavailability of the active ingredient, the hormone 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, which is only produced by reactions of the vitamin D in the body and can presumably inhibit tumor growth.
Older people benefit more
A more detailed analysis of the studies with daily intake also showed that people over the age of 70 benefited the most from vitamin D3 therapy. In addition, the effect was most evident when vitamin D intake was started before the cancer was diagnosed. Hermann Brenner, epidemiologist at the Cancer Research Center: “Vitamin D3 administration has great potential in prevention. Regular intake in low doses is associated with almost negligible risk and very low costs.” (rnw)
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