Vitamin D is back in the news again with three new articles about the benefits of vitamin D in the last few months. All three of the articles show that higher vitamin D levels improve longevity.
The first article recently out came from researchers at the prominent German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. The researchers looked at five studies that involved a total of 4,413 breast cancer patients and five studies that included 2,330 colorectal cancer patients. After analyzing these studies they showed a 38% average lower risk of dying from any cause, and a 42% lower risk of dying from breast cancer, when they compared the highest to the lowest levels of vitamin D blood levels. In this study, looking at colorectal cancer there was a 29% lower risk for all causes of death and a 35% lower risk for colorectal cancer death again when the highest to lowest category of vitamin D levels was compared.
The authors of the article, Haafi Maalmi, M.D., [and colleagues are quoted as saying “The rather consistent results found in our meta-– analysis suggest vitamin D supplementation might bear potential to improve prognosis among colorectal and breast cancer patients, a suggestion that should be followed up and tested in randomized controlled trials.”
Again, this study was epidemiological and the gold standard by conventional medicine is the double-blind crossover placebo-controlled trial which they are encouraging to be done.
The second recent article on the benefits of vitamin D was published in the prominent British Medical Journal. The authors, Rajiv Chowdhury. M.D., and colleagues did another meta-analysis and found that those with higher blood levels of vitamin D had a lower risk of death from any cause over follow-up periods that range from .3 to 29 years. This team of researchers also found a reduction in the risk of premature death in association with the use of vitamin D supplements.
In all, they looked at 73 studies and the association between vitamin D levels and cause of death in 849,412 men and women over the follow-up period of time.
This research also showed a 35% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease or from any cause over the follow-up period of time in those patients whose vitamin D levels were in the lowest one third of all patients in comparison to those whose levels were in the highest one third.
The authors stated in the article that “Supplementation with vitamin D3 significantly reduces overall mortality among older adults; however, before any widespread supplementation, further investigations will be required to establish the optimal dose and duration and whether vitamin D3 and D2 have different effects on mortality risk”. Again like the Institute of Medicine, they say to keep waiting until the studies are done before you take Vitamin D! I do not agree at all, as there is no harm in normalizing your vitamin D level!
The third recent study, that in my opinion put the icing on the cake about taking vitamin D was just published this month in the American Journal of Public Health. This article was authored by Cedric Garland, DrPH, and colleagues. Dr. Garland is one of the doctors who wrote a frontispiece for my recent book on vitamin D.
In this article they looked at the relationship between vitamin D levels and all causes of mortality. They researched articles from the year 1996 to January 2013. They identified 32 studies that looked at this information and they pulled the data together.
When they compared those people with the lowest levels of vitamin D to the highest level of vitamin D, the risk of death for the low vitamin D patients was almost 200% higher! This is an astonishing finding. In the article, their definition of the highest levels of vitamin D was simply to have a blood level over 30 ng/mL. Dr. Garland and co-authors say that simply taking 1000 thousand IU of vitamin D per day could achieve this level of 30 ng/mL for the entire population of the United States.
As my patients and readers know, I still recommend that my patients keep their blood levels between 40 and 70 ng/mL for optimum health. In order to achieve this, a level higher than 1000 IU per day will be required. Blood tests will also need to be followed when using these higher doses.
I recommend to all my patients and readers that they get a vitamin D blood test along with their annual physical every year. Just like you will get a cholesterol level every year, please get a vitamin D level as well. Also remind your friends or family who may have cancer to check with her oncologist to see if vitamin D would be helpful to them.
References
1.Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and survival in colorectal and breast cancer patients: systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies PMID: 24582912
2.Vitamin D and risk of cause specific death: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational cohort and randomised intervention studies. PMID: 24690623
3.Meta-analysis of All-Cause Mortality According to Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D