People who take vitamin D supplements are half as likely to get deadly pancreatic cancer as people who do not. The study, which appeared in Journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, suggests this is an easy way to reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer, the fourth-leading cause of death from cancer in the United States. This year, the American Cancer Society estimates that 32,000 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed, and only 5 percent of patients will survive more than five years.
"Because there is no effective screening for pancreatic cancer, identifying controllable risk factors for the disease is essential for developing strategies that can prevent cancer," Halcyon Skinner of Northwestern University in Chicago, who helped lead the study, said in a statement.
"Vitamin D has shown strong potential for preventing and treating prostate cancer, and areas with greater sunlight exposure have lower incidence and mortality for prostate, breast, and colon cancers, leading us to investigate a role for Vitamin D in pancreatic cancer risk."
Working with colleagues at Harvard University, Skinner's team examined data from two large, long-term health surveys involving 46,771 men aged 40 to 75 and 75,427 women aged 38 to 65.
They found that people who took the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance of Vitamin D, 400 IU a day, had a 43 percent lower risk of pancreatic cancer.
Those who took doses of less than 150 IU per day had a 22 percent reduced risk of cancer.
Steve - this will come as good news to those of you who take a multivitamin, vitamin D separately in supplement form, or the gold standrad (other than the sun), Cod Liver Oil.
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