In A Nutshell, Vitamin D Prevents Cancer

Misinformation about vitamin D is being served up all over the Web. Too many people are refusing to believe that something as simple as vitamin D effectively prevents cancer. Our article clarifies what the public needs to know about vitamin D, as well as dispel some of the crazy talk going around.

This article delivers mostly conclusions based upon the lifetime work of a single vitamin D researcher: Cedric Garland, Doctor of Public Health, Professor, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of California San Diego School of Medicine.

Support for our conclusions is provided by referencing two different video presentations [2],[3] as well as a Microsoft PowerPoint slide presentation of Dr. Garland [4] that was presented during the Vitamin D and Cancer: Current Dilemmas/Future Needs meeting at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Prevention, on May 07, 2007. Ergo, specific citations are in reference to specific time segments of the respective videos shown below, as well as to specific PowerPoint slide numbers; all of which are referenced at the extreme bottom of this article.

 

Vitamin D Prevents Cancer

On the Natural Health Perspective, people supplement with vitamin D in order to prevent cancer, period. In short, of all the diseases preventing cancer requires the most vitamin D. Ergo, when you are covered for cancer, you are covered for all diseases that are prevented by vitamin D. Everything else should be considered as a side benefit of supplementing with D. For example, helping to prevent influenza should be considered a welcomed minor side benefit of regular supplementation.

Successful vitamin D researchers wear many different hats. They spend most of their time pursuing hard academic science activities. Science related activities would include procuring millions of dollars worth of research grants from NIH, as well as presenting extremely technical PowerPoint slide presentations in various types of meetings, some of which are more academically oriented than others. Less often they spend time talking about resolving policy on different public health issues. On the very bottom of the list are talks delivered about application or what the public should be doing in terms of supplementation. Here is where Web sites, like the Natural Health Perspective, come in. We interpret the science for easy public consumption.

Vitamin D Research Controversy

There is more than enough science to indicate that vitamin D prevents cancer.[15] Whether or not the powers that be and conventional medicine has accepted the science, is an entirely different issue. While science is immortal, the public has to act on the available information, now, in order to receive health benefits in the future.

The definitive RCT research study to date on vitamin D preventing cancer is the Lappe Trial.[1],[5],[6]

In the development of cancer, damage to the DNA is not the primary problem. Vitamin D prevents cancer by targeting cell membranes and especially the inter-cellular adhesion of all cells in the human body.[7] Vitamin D accomplishes all this by a variety of different physical mechanisms, such as its ability to turn on and off 2,000 different genes in the human genome. It is also capable of boosting your natural immune system which in turn kills cancer cells.

Did you know, for example, that breast cancer is a vitamin D deficiency disease?[16] In fact, most, if not all, cancers are a vitamin D deficiency disease.

 

Duration of Time Is Critical

The Dose Response Relationship between Vitamin D Status and Cancer Prevention

Your job is to pick a blood level of vitamin D that is appropriate for your age as well as what you personally feel comfortable with. Plus, you should keep supplementing for at least 3 years. In science, vitamin D has been found to act quickly. But remember that in science quick is considered to be a minimum of at least 3 years of daily supplementation.[8],[9] Occasionally taking large dosages of Vitamin D in lieu of daily supplementation simply does NOT work nearly as well.[10]

Regarding the consensus among scientists as to what vitamin D blood levels should be obtained by everyone, it is certainly no less than 40 ng/mL (100 nmol/L). Numerous research studies have verified that blood levels can safely go all the way up to 60 ng/mL. Dr Garland is on the record for saying that 60 ng/mL (150 nmol/L) is about right, in 2009.[11] The Natural Health Perspective is of the opinion that older adults without a history of supplementation should seriously consider maintaining blood levels as high as 80 to 100 ng/mL (200 - 250 nmol/L) for at least three years, in order to make up for lost time. After daily supplementation for at least three years, older individuals probably could conceivably safely cut back down to no lower than 60.

While vitamin D works, it takes time to work. Vitamin D is theorized to work by removing all cancerous, pre-cancerous, and abnormal growths throughout your entire body, one cell at a time. This is done by either converting abnormal growths back into a normal state, or by outright killing these abnormal growths through a process called apoptosis. Further, one molecular of vitamin D ends up being attached to virtually every cell in your body by way of its VDR (i.e., vitamin D receptor). This is what is theorized to take a minimum of 3 years to accomplish.

Vitamin D and Cancer Prevention

Supplementing With Vitamin D Is Key

Ergo, anybody who thinks that they can obtain adequate amounts of vitamin D from sunshine or from their diet alone is sadly delusional. The good news is that vitamin D supplements are extremely inexpensive. Further, no one is stopping anybody from occasionally sunning themselves.

Taking 5,000 IU a day of vitamin D for an adult weighing 150 pounds, followed up with a vitamin D blood test after 3 months of supplementation, is certainly a good place to start.

Successful supplementation requires good digestion. Individuals with digestive issues should supplement with vitamin D at a much higher level, try one of the latest products that allow vitamin D to be absorbed through the skin, and / or consider frequenting tanning bed establishments.

Do not supplement with both Retinol (i.e., vitamin A) and vitamin D-3 at the same time, or even on the same day.

Trying to meet your vitamin D needs through sunning is impractical, expensive if your time is worth money, and raises serious skin cancer and aging concerns. In short, it is the position of the Natural Health Perspective that sunning increases the level of complications that the public has to deal with. For most, supplementation is by far the easiest approach to take.

 

Why Vitamin D Might NOT Work

If someone is supplementing with vitamin D, yet ends up being diagnosed with cancer there are a number of possibilities that could explain why.

1. They have been supplementing with vitamin D for less than 3 years.[8],[9]
2. Their blood levels of vitamin D were too low.[11]
3. They were supplementing with inadequate amounts of the cofactors of vitamin D, which primarily are calcium[12],[13]; magnesium; selenium, and vitamin K-2 MK-7.
4. Something else is going on that is overwhelming or masking the anti-cancer properties of vitamin D.[14]

• Smoking
• Electronic Cigarettes?
• Smoking Marijuana?
• Drinking Excessive Amounts of Alcohol
• Beer Drinkers?
• Getting Drunk?
• How much alcohol is too much?

The possibilities of what might overwhelm vitamin D, would vary by the different specific types of cancer. But in general, smoking and excessive amounts of alcohol has been established by science as being capable of nullifying the anti-cancer effects of vitamin D.[14]

It is not so much that vitamin D might promote certain types of cancer, than it is that it might fail to protect against certain specific types of cancers. What is wrong with drinking alcohol? Well, now you know. WARNING: Those who engage in smoking of any type or regularly drink alcoholic beverages are flirting with throwing away all the life saving anti-cancer properties of vitamin D.

 

Vitamin D Cofactors

Taking other supplements along with Vitamin D increases its effectiveness. Calcium is extremely important.[12],[13] Whenever you supplement with calcium citrate you should be taking equal amounts of magnesium citrate. When your daily dosage of calcium is over 400 mg, then you should definitely also be taking some vitamin K-2 MK-7. Both magnesium and MK-7 help to put the calcium where it belongs in your bones as well as prevent soft-tissue calcification issues or vitamin D toxicity.

 

In conclusion, for the most part the Natural Health Perspective is simply echoing the comments made by Dr. Cedric Garland, which have been extensively footnoted on this article for the benefit of any naysayers. Some people are more likely to believe that vitamin D effectively prevents cancer when they can hear the premier vitamin D researcher making a statement on video.

Dr. Garland presented this information to the U.S. government back in 2007. During 2009, he developed and published the DINOMIT Model of Cancer Development. In the above 2014 video, Dr. Garland gives no indication that his position has changed substantially since 2007.

The only precise way for a person to know their exact vitamin D status is by taking an appropriate blood test.

Remember that daily supplementation with vitamin D goes on for forever, but the first 3 years is the most critical period. Vitamin D works, but takes time to work. It takes a minimum of at least three years of maintaining adequate blood levels.[8],[9]

The Natural Health Perspective has not put all its eggs into one basket. We offer six (6) different strategies for preventing cancer, of which vitamin D is our primary anti-cancer strategy.

 

 

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Please read our Nutritional Supplements Disclaimer.

References

1. Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized [controlled] trial.
   Lappe JM, Travers-Gustafson D, Davies KM, Recker RR, Heaney RP.
   Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Jun;85(6):1586-91. Erratum in: Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Mar;87(3):794.
   PMID: 17556697
2. vitaminDaction Youtube video, Vitamin D Research Controversy, Feb 2014. Shown above
3. UCTV Youtube video, Vitamin D and Cancer Prevention, Feb 2009, Show ID: 15767. Shown above
4. Garland, Cedric, Dr PH, What is the Dose Response Relationship Between Vitamin D Status and Cancer?, May 2007, 48 ppt slides.
5. vitaminDaction Youtube video, 2014, minutes: 3:23-4:00
6. Garland, 2007, ppt slide #21
7. UCTV Youtube video, 2009, minutes: 01:10 - 2:56
8. vitaminDaction Youtube video, 2014, minutes: 8:33 - 8:40
9. Garland, 2007, ppt slides #23 & #47
10. vitaminDaction Youtube video, 2014, minutes: 5:30 - 6:35
11. vitaminDaction Youtube video, 2014, minutes: 13:36 - 14:58
12. vitaminDaction Youtube video, 2014, minutes: 7:13 - 8:30
13. Garland, 2007, ppt slides #22 & #31
14. UCTV Youtube video, 2009, minutes: 36:28 - 37:02
15. UCTV Youtube video, 2009, minutes: 2:02 - 2:15
16. Youtube video, 2014, minutes: 14:20 - 14:40