Cancer, Vitamin D, and Sunshine

[tiptoe]

Source: Cancer Monthly

Vitamin D From Sun Exposure Reduces Cancer Risk, Ecological Studies Find

Getting enough vitamin D can significantly reduce the risk of several different types of cancer, and ecological studies done over the past decade have confirmed that sun exposure is a critical source of this vitamin, according to a recent report in Annals of Epidemiology.

Researchers have been looking at the connection between vitamin D from sunlight and cancer risk since 1980, when researchers Cedric and Frank Garland looked at geographic maps of cancer deaths and found that mortality from colon cancer was highest in places where residents got the least amount of sun exposure (such as in high latitudes).

William B. Grant, PhD., Director of the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC) in San Francisco, California, has been one of the foremost researchers on vitamin D and cancer incidence since 2000. In a 2002 study, he identified 14 different types of cancers that were linked to insufficient UVB exposure, and estimated that between 17,000 and 23,000 people die prematurely each year in the U.S. due to a lack of vitamin D from the sun.

The strongest associations between vitamin D from the sun and cancer have been with colon and breast cancers, but links have also been found with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, ovarian cancer, and kidney cancer. Studies have also connected vitamin D to a reduced incidence of other diseases, such as colds and flu, coronary heart disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.
...

Read more: http://www.cancermonthly.com/iNP/view.asp?ID=244

---

Vitamin D site: Myths, FAQ, "...Vitamin D: A Real Missing Link..." Prescription=D2 vs D3, Testing, Optimal Ranges

 

[TwilightGardener]

1. Hmm...colon cancer, or melanoma? Colon cancer... melanoma...

Pick one.

[Prometheus Bound]

2. The article helps with that question.

For years, dermatologists have been warning Americans to stay out of the sun when possible, and to wear sunscreen when exposed, to avoid developing melanoma—the deadliest form of skin cancer. Yet Dr. Grant says melanomas tend to be caused by UVA rays, which are highest during the morning hours, rather than the cancer-protective UVB rays, which increase at around 1 p.m. “You go out for a shorter time at midday and make your vitamin D, and then cover up,” he advises.

[JerseygirlCT]

29. As we seem to find with most things, moderation seems to be the key.

Sun-worshipping, not so smart. Some sun - and it's not a lot that's required - can be helpful.

I think the tricky part is getting that little bit for those of us in the more northerly climes...

[tabatha]

3. Excessive sun = melanoma.

Sensible sun = healthy.

[MissMarple]

4. How about a nice vitamin D3 supplement?

Citrical has D3, no sunburn necessary. :)

And I don't mind the honey bees, but the yellow jackets are another thing entirely.

[TwilightGardener]

6. I'm phobic about anything that flies and has a stinger, but yellow jackets

are the absolute worst. I hate they way they hover around, DARING you to make a move. Hence, I avoid going outside in the summer and soaking up my vitamin D...

[8 track mind]

15. and they always attack in groups. ouch. n/t

[Blandocyte]

22. You're not getting enough vitamin bee

bada boom chish!

[qb]

7. D3 supplements are supposed to be just as effective as "Vitamin D from the sun"

D3 is inexpensive, too.

[ldf]

23. i don't believe ANYTHING is as effective

as the natural source.

moderation is everything.

i grew up my entire life in florida, until age 45. that was in 1996.

i then moved to where it was either too damn hot to lay in the sun, or to damned inconvenient to trek someplace where i COULD lay in the sun.

and i have had nothing but problems with my skin ever since i left florida.

again, moderation is everything, and natural is best, no exceptions.

your mileage may vary.

:shrug:

[1monster]

17. I was wondering the same thing since I take 1000 mg of D3 every day...

[Mari333]

40. lol same thing I thought lol nt

[tiptoe]

5. Myths, FAQ, "...Vitamin D: A Real Missing Link..." Prescription=D2 vs D3, Testing, Optimal Ranges -x

Myths, FAQ, "...Vitamin D: A Real Missing Link..." Prescription=D2 vs D3, Testing, Optimal Ranges

 

[kimmerspixelated]

11. Thanks Tiptoe!

Everyone needs to be reminded of this most important health fact! Also, noteworthy is that one can protect themselves from the inside out against sunburn when supplementing with Astaxanthin.

[tiptoe]

21. thanks for the tip! nt

[Vinca]

8. This winter I took extra Vitamin D in an effort to stave off the usual

lack-of-sun downturn in my mood. Surprisingly, it worked.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

9. My physician put me on Vitamin D

about six months ago. Her nurse is on it, too. We're both healthy, but were low when blood test results came back.

So, twice a month, I take 50,000 units of Vitamin D.

Beats being out in the sun...........

[InvisibleTouch]

10. Sunlight (full-spectrum light) also stimulates the immune system.

Check out this obscurre but very informative book on the subject:

Health and Light: The Effects of Natural and Artificial Light on Man and Other Living Things

It's by John Nash Ott, who pioneered the use of time-lapse photography to record such events as flowers opening, seeds shooting out, etc. In the process of setting up his lighting to take his pictures, he discovered a lot about the effects of different light spectra. And how damaging artificial lighting can be to us both physically and psychologically.

My fourth grade classroom had big windows that let in the light, and I remember distinctly how pleasant it was to have that natural light coming in after we got back to the classroom after lunch (even though it was filtered through glass and so wasn't truly full-spectrum) - and how literally painful it was when the teacher would draw the shades and turn on the fluorescents. I suspect that a lot of behavioral problems in the classrooms (ADHD and the like) would improve drastically if full-spectrum lighting was used.

[DumpDavisHogg]

12. They need to bring back schools that actually had windows

Today's prison-like schools usually don't even have windows. If they have them at all, the windows are tiny. Something about "windows break easy" or something.

America no longer has a school system. It has a prison system.

[Posteritatis]

20. My former HS' windows are actually barred now

Nice to see they're dropping the pretenses, at least, but really now...

[Gator_Matt]

13. This doesn't tell the whole story

If you want to avoid colon cancer, you're better off avoiding red meat. It will reduce your risk more than sunlight will and without the risk of skin cancer.

My lab has examined Vitamin D in relation to a certain disease from patients in Florida. Surprisingly, all several hundred were Vitamin D insufficient. In other words, I'd be suspect of latitude playing a huge role. Often these studies will use gigantic group sizes to barely reach statistical significance (i.e. in the real world, there's not much to it.).

The effect upon the immune system is also unclear. Certain immune cell types actually have Vitamin D receptors, but it is not totally clear what role they play.

Overall, vitamin D has been getting more and more attention. The suggested intake has also been steadily rising over the last decade. With all the funding that is being poured into this, we should get a clearer picture of what is going on within a few years.

Just my 2 cents.

[skids]

16. Plus it's not necessarily post-natal exposure...

...as the recent findings on Vitamin D and Multiple Sclerosis showed,
in some cases it may not matter how much Vitamin D you get, what matters
is how much your mother got when you were in her belly.

But yeah, more research = better.

Now imagine if all the money poured into getting boner drugs approved
had gone to research vitamins, minerals, and household chemicals we've
had in circulation for ages...

[OwnedByFerrets]

19. ...

Eating large amounts of red or processed meat over a long period of time can indeed raise colorectal cancer risk. But the risks from such a diet are smaller than those from obesity and lack of exercise, both for colon cancer and for overall health.

[cobalt1999]

14. We evolved being outside and nude.

No surprise that a modern indoor lifestyle is a cause of health problems.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. I started taking vitamin D last summer after

my brother the doctor told me about the latest research. Since then, I've gotten through a whole winter without a single cold or flu, despite not having taken a flu shot. I've felt as if I was coming down with a cold several times, but on those occasions, I've just taken zinc tablets and vitamin C, eaten some spicy food (thank you, Vietnamese restaurant around the corner), and gone to bed early. The next morning, the "coming down with a cold" feeling is gone.

This is despite the fact that I sit in crowded choir stalls with people who have been absolutely plagued by colds this winter.

[Mz Pip]

24. I have disturbingly low Vitamin D

and recently started taking 50,000 units once a week of prescription Vitamin D. I am hoping it will help with my joint pain and some GI disturbances I experience.

Now that the weather is pleasant I try to sit in the sun for 20 minutes every day as well.

I guess this is a fairly new test - at least in terms of being ordered on a routine basis. I get blood work done every year and this year was the first time the Dr. ordered a Vitamin D test.

It's always something. :shrug:

[Duer 157099]

26. Same here. I just finished my second 8-week course

Will know the results in a few days. My teenage son, who spends more time outdoors than I do, is also on the low end (28) so I've started giving him supplements.

[tiptoe]

27. How were the results?

Are you using D2 or D3 supplements?
What's been the dosage regimen??

[tiptoe]

25. "Researchers who touted high vitamin D doses shut out of panel"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090403.wlvitamind03/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

Some of the most sensational health claims ever advanced about a nutrient have recently been made for vitamin D. Not having enough of the sunshine vitamin has been linked to a slew of chronic ailments, including cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Now, the purported benefits of taking extra vitamin D are about to receive high-level scientific scrutiny through a review conducted at the behest of the Canadian and U.S. governments. But the effort is already mired in controversy.

The panel selected to analyze the health claims is being criticized for not including the medical researchers whose work prompted intense scientific interest in the nutrient in the first place.

"If you were publicly in favour of vitamin D, you were not included, and I find that outrageous," said Reinhold Vieth, a professor in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Toronto, and one of Canada's leading experts on the nutrient.
...
Dr. Vieth proposed six top vitamin D experts for the panel, but they were all rejected. They included Cedric Garland of the University of California, San Diego, one of the scientists who discovered a link between low vitamin D levels and colon cancer incidence, and Joan Lappe, a researcher at Creighton University who co-authored a study in 2007 that found women taking 1,100 IU a day as well as calcium supplements had a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence.

Dr. Vieth says he has "total respect" for those selected to serve on the panel, but adds that as a group they do not represent the full scope of scientific expertise available.
...

 

[bitchkitty]

28. Very, very interesting.

I spent my whole life in places like Southern California, Georgia, Spain - and then I came to Oregon in 2000. Since about 8 months after I got here, I've been sick. I got breast cancer and went through chemo and radiation, then fell very ill with liver problems, and recently had precancerous polyps removed from my colon. I've always thought I was "allergic" to this state!

Tanning bed, here I come!

[tiptoe]

31. A video interview re a new study (April 2009):

"...intake of vitamin D3 and calcium would prevent 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer annually in the US and Canada. The researchers' model also predicted that 75% of deaths from these cancers could be prevented with adequate intake of vitamin D3 and calcium."




Also, some comments on tanning lamps (UVA vs UVB) at 37:23, here

 

[Locrian]

30. re: skin cancer

Does anyone think there might be a connection between skin cancer and slathering all that petroleum based chemicals and god knows what else on you body to *protect* from the sun???? Just sayin.....

[tiptoe]

32. see:

Skin Cancer/Sunscreen - the Dilemma

[SWr]

33. interesting

Ive wondered the same thing for years. Moisturizers, sunblock itself and all that other stuff we use

in daily life.

[tiptoe]

41. "CDC Finds 97% of Americans Contaminated by Sunscreens"

CDC Finds 97% of Americans Contaminated by Sunscreens

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) released a new study showing that nearly all Americans are contaminated with oxybenzone, a widely-used sunscreen ingredient.

This chemical so far has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage, as well as low birth weight in baby girls whose mothers are exposed during pregnancy.

Oxybenzone is also a penetration enhancer, a chemical that helps other chemicals penetrate the skin. So where has the FDA been on this?

Apparently in the back pocket of the sunscreen industry, The Food and Drug Administration, again, has failed in its duty to protect the public from toxic chemicals like oxybenzone.

Caving to the industry lobbyists, the agency has delayed final sunscreen safety standards for nearly 30 years. FDA issued a new draft of the standards last October under pressure from Environmental Working Group (EWG), but continues to delay finalizing them because of pressure from the industry.

-more-

 

[cpompilo]

34. Here is some information on nutrition and health

from the Weston A. Price Foundation. Dr. Price was a dentist, who, decades ago, did research on the impact of nutrition on dental health. Very interesting reading.

http://www.westonaprice.org/splash_2.htm

[ronnie624]

35. Shedding light on vitamin D deficiency ‘crisis’

The vitamin D craze has been building over the last few years, with low levels of the supplement being the blamed as a source of many of our ills. Depression? D can ease it. Chronic pain? Take D. It is said to prevent kidney disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, colon and breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, or even the common cold. Recently, a study linked low vitamin D levels to the rise in Caesarean births.

Some studies, mainly epidemiological research that hunts for associations between diseases and possible causes, would seem to support that enthusiasm. For example, Cedric Garland, professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine and colleagues, found that "the serum level associated with a 50 percent reduction in risk could be maintained by taking 2,000 international units of vitamin D3 daily." Garland believes the good news is being suppressed.

“We are curing cancer and diabetes and nobody is doing anything about it,” Garland said.

Well, not quite. Partly through the agitation of evangelists like Garland, along with the efforts of the indoor tanning industry, the vitamin companies, and medical testing outfits, the message has been heard. Patients are now getting their vitamin D status tested at such a rate Quest Diagnostics, the world’s largest medical testing company, reports double digit sales growth of vitamin D tests, which can cost upwards of $200.

<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28894095/>

[tiptoe]

39. The cited, slanted article leaves out important information.

 
From the OP's cited article:

...
And at least one major study has contradicted the overheated claims of vitamin D advocates. In 2006, new results from the Women's Health Initiative, a huge federal study launched in the 1990s that focused on the benefits and risks of hormones for postmenopausal women, showed little benefit in participants who were given extra calcium and vitamin D. The supplements had no effect on colon cancer rates, cardiovascular disease, invasive breast cancer, and, most surprisingly, no effect on overall bone fractures (though it did strengthen hip bones), researchers found.

“We didn’t even show a blip,” said Jean Wactawski-Wende, Ph.D., associate chair of the department of social and preventive medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo and lead author of the study that looked at colorectal cancer rates in the Women’s Health Initiative participants.

The above study in the experiment of the relationship between Vitamin D, calcium and cancer was based on a design conceived in 1994. 400 IU/day were given to a sample of postmenopausal women with a median serum 25(OH)D level of 42 nMol/L. Abstracts and the "no effect" findings have been posted:

Myths, FAQ, "...Vitamin D: A Real Missing Link..." Prescription=D2 vs D3, Testing, Optimal Ranges
#87 "a peer reviewed opinion breast cancer risk and VitD- sadly no."
#88 "VitD and endometiral cancer? Sadly, not proven to help."
#89 "VitD and general health improvment for women? Nope."

The OP's article, however, does not tell the whole story and excludes the findings of a later study, designed two years after the WHI, which had 1100 IU/day applied to a sample of 1,179 postmenopausal women with serum 25(OH)D levels of greater than 80 nMol/L. The findings were significant. That 2007-published study by Lappe et al -- Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial -- is recognized by Dr. Cedric Garland as the "definitive" study in the experiment of the relationship between Vitamin D, calcium and cancer.

The current study is, to our knowledge, the first randomized controlled trial that involved a vitamin D intervention sufficient to raise serum 25(OH)D >80 nmol/L and reported a cancer outcome. Our findings of decreased all-cancer risk with improved vitamin D status are consistent with a large and still growing body of epidemiologic and observational data showing that cancer risk, cancer mortality, or both are inversely associated with solar exposure, vitamin D status, or both (1–10, 12–18, 26). Our conclusion that the observed effect was not simply a chance association is strengthened both by the observed, substantial improvement in RR when cancers occurring early in the trial were excluded and by the highly significant predictive effect of both the baseline and the 1-y serum 25(OH)D values in addition to the intervention itself.
...
Strengths of the present study include that it was population based, that it had a low drop-out rate (<3.5%/y) and a high level of treatment adherence, and that it used a vitamin D dose sufficient to raise serum 25(OH)D by a biologically meaningful amount. This latter feature may be a principal point of difference from most other investigations, both randomized trials and observational studies. In the WHI, the achieved vitamin D dose, taking compliance into consideration, would have been ~200 IU/d (27), sufficient to elevate serum 25(OH)D from a median of 42 nmol/L to only 47 nmol/L (32). This is in striking contrast to the much higher 25(OH)D values in our treated women at both baseline and 1 y (Table 2)
...

(#94: Above = 400IU VitD3 & serum not "biologically meaningful", but @ 1100 IU, serum 25(OH)D>80nm/L =Yep!

#92: for video commentary on the Lappe et al study by Dr. Cedric Garland)

The Risk of Additional Vitamin D – Reinhold Vieth, PhD
Ann. Epidemiology, April 11, 2009 (Epub ahead of schedule)

”…Evidence from clinical trials shows, with a wide margin of confidence, that a prolonged intake of 10,000 IU/d of vitamin D(3) poses no risk of adverse effects for adults, even if this is added to a rather high physiologic background level of vitamin D.”

 

[Forkboy]

36. Well then, that explain why I have it.

Unless vitamin D comes in pizza I never get any, and I avoid the sun more than vampires. :)

[hedgehog]

37. Not to mention:

Epidemic Influenza And Vitamin D

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51913.php

[bemildred]

38. The drawbacks of not enough are well known, so I don't see why making sure you got plenty is bad. nt