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Vitamin D for Breast Cancer
August 31, 2009
Breast cancer patients who were deficient in vitamin D were 94% more likely to have their cancer spread, and 73% more likely to die, than women with normal levels, according to a study led by Dr. Pamela Goodwin of Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada.
In the study, the cases of 512 women (who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1989 and 1995) were followed until 2006. More than three-quarters of the women had a vitamin D deficiency when diagnosed. The researchers found that those with the lowest levels of vitamin D had the highest risk of dying from the disease. Women with lower vitamin D levels also were more likely to develop cancer before menopause, be overweight, and have more aggressive tumors than women with adequate vitamin D.
Ten years after their diagnosis, 85% of the women with normal vitamin D levels at the time of diagnosis were still alive. For the vast majority of those women, the cancer had neither spread nor come back. In contrast, only 69% of the women with low vitamin D levels were cancer-free 10 years later, with 74% still living. The apparent connection between vitamin D and breast cancer is in addition to other research results linking vitamin D deficiency to colon cancer, blood malignancies, and heart disease. These findings were presented by Dr. Richard Schilsky of the University of Chicago at the 2008 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Topics: Health News