Vitamin D Prevents Breast Cancer

Christina Applegate getting exercise and free vitamin D. She is a breast cancer survivor. Picture from this webpage.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news you already know about. That is that cancer is the second leading cause of death in the U.S. For women their biggest cancer challenge is breast cancer. Many women that live end up losing their breasts.

Here is the good news. In the last 3 years, 6 MDs have writiten 6 books on vitamin D (now a 7th one-- see below)! (see their qualifications in the books below). In 2007 Time Magazine chose vitamin D as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of the year. In 2010 the RDA of vitamin D was tripled! For decades vitamin D has been the undisputed cure for rickets.

Moores Cancer Center is proposing that cancer is a vitamin D deficiency. The doctor of public health there and professor of University of California, San Diego, Cedric Garland, states that enough vitamin D (lifeguard levels) will virtually eradicate breast cancer! As far as "enough", that is why the RDA was tripled. Many experts think it is still too low but they can always raise it again later.

Webmd.com has an article: Low Vitamin D Levels Common in Breast Cancer

"Women with breast cancer should be tested for vitamin D levels and offered supplements, if necessary," says researcher Sonia Li, MD, of the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre in Middlesex, England. The findings were presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

They also had an article the month before saying that vitamin D did not help with breast cancer. But they questioned if it was the amount that they were using. They were not using enough vitamin D (only 400 IU daily). That amount is too little to affect all these other things other than bone density. What other things?

Andrew Weil M.D. says in the forward of the book, The Vitamin D Solution:

Increasing the amount of vitamin D in the body can prevent or help treat a remarkable number of ailments, from obesity to arthritis, from high blood pressure to back pain, from diabetes to muscle cramps, from upper respiratory tract infections to infectious disease, and from fibromyalgia to cancers of the breast, colon, pancreas, prostate and ovaries.

Christiane Northrup M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn, is a visionary pioneer, beloved authority in women's health and wellness and the author of the great New York Times best-sellers Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause. She has an article on the Oprah website called Prevent Breast Cancer with Vitamin D:

There's a paradigm shift going on in medicine as new research reveals a far greater role for vitamin D.

In addition to protecting the bones and boosting the immune system, studies show that Vitamin D helps prevent certain cancers, including breast, ovarian, prostate and colorectal. [footnote 2, 3, 4, 5] Exciting new research shows that, in the United States alone, thousands of new cases of breast cancer could be prevented every year if more women had optimal levels of vitamin D. [footnote 6]

Would you like to watch a 6 minute video by the great and powerful Dr. Oz (he has his own TV show)? It is called The Power of Vitamin D. It is about using vitamin D to prevent breast, colon and uterine cancer and how this works. The same things that prevent cancer can cure cancer.

Harvard Medical School article Time for More Vitamin D (health.harvard.edu) (This article was first printed in the September 2008 issue of the Harvard Women Health Watch) says:

Hardly a month goes by without news about the risks of vitamin D deficiency or about a potential role for the vitamin in warding off diseases, including breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and even schizophrenia.

However, in one of the few randomized trials testing the effect of vitamin D supplements on cancer outcomes, postmenopausal women who took 1,100 international units (IU) of vitamin D plus 1,400 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium per day reduced their risk of developing non-skin cancers by 77% after four years, compared with a placebo and the same dose of calcium.

That is enough information to create a serious interest in the possibility of vitamin D helping with breast cancers and other cancers. You can find a lot more of this and other things that you can do to reduce your chances of getting breast cancer, like drinking green tea and eating more fruits and vegetables at Fighting Cancer with Vitamin D and More.

The quote from Harvard tells about a study that showed that vitamin D can reduce all non-skin cancers by 77%! Johns Hopkins Medicine has an article called Vitamin D and Prostate Cancer. It says:

In addition, vitamin D is believed to help maintain a strong immune system and to regulate cell growth, differentiation (the process whereby new cells develop into distinct types of cells), and apoptosis (the programmed cell death that keeps cell proliferation in check). Out-of-control cell proliferation is the hallmark of cancer.

Studies over the years have pointed to an association between geographic location and the risk of dying of certain diseases. For example, people who live in more southerly latitudes (and who receive year-round sunshine) appear to have a lower risk of dying of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers, such as colon and breast, than do those who live in northern latitudes. Researchers suspect that the higher sun exposure, which creates more vitamin D in the skin, may be responsible.

More women die of lung cancer than breast cancer but many lose their breasts from the breast cancer. Also they say that 90% of lung cancer is caused by smoking cigarettes. Also see 8 Foods That Can Reduce Breast Cancer Risk.

Here is something interesting about cancer and sunlight. Dermatologists say that sunlight causes melanoma (skin cancer). The chance of an American getting melanoma in any year is about one out of 5,000. Sunscreen and sunblock causes skin cancer. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) lists the number of people getting melanoma in each of these states in 4 different levels from highest to lowest.

Texas, Arizona and New Mexico are right above (north of) Mexico and get very bright sunlight especially with the high elevations in Arizona and New Mexico. These 3 states are in the lowest category of melanoma.

Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are at the top of the country with a latitude that is higher (further from the equator) than parts of Canada. These 3 states are in the category with the highest amount of melanoma cases anywhere. Is it possible that dermatologists invested money in companies selling skin products and billions of this come from people buying sunblock and sunscreen that causes skin cancer?

At the latitude of Boston, MA there are 3 months of the year (around first day of winter-- shortest daylight) where you cannot get any vitamin D from sunlight. At the latitude of Montreal, Canada, there are 5 months of the year where you cannot any vitamin D from sunlight.

There is now another book on vitamin D by an M.D. in a popular book series called Vitamin D for Dummies. The author also wrote Diabetes for Dummies that sold over 1 million copies. It is the only book in this series about a nutrient.

Joseph Mercola D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy) says:

Despite all the bad press linking sun exposure to skin cancer, there's almost no evidence at all to support it. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary. Over the years, several studies have confirmed that appropriate sun exposure actually helps prevent skin cancer. In fact, melanoma occurrence has been found to decrease with greater sun exposure, and can be increased by sunscreens.

One of the most important facts you should know is that an epidemic of the disease has in fact broken out among indoor workers. These workers get three to nine times LESS solar UV exposure than outdoor workers get, yet only indoor workers have increasing rates of melanoma -- and the rates have been increasing since before 1940.

The Lancet is the world's leading general medical journal and specialty journals in Oncology, Neurology and Infectious Diseases.
The Lancet says:

Sunlight is the main environmental cause of most cutaneous melanomas. Exposure to intense bursts of ultraviolet radiation, especially in childhood, starts the transformation of benign melanocytes into a malignant phenotype. Paradoxically, outdoor workers have a decreased risk of melanoma compared with indoor workers, suggesting that chronic sunlight exposure can have a protective effect. Further, some melanomas form on sun-exposed regions; others do not.