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For many of you, the touch of spring is on the horizon and the opportunity to finally expose your skin to healthy doses of sun is very close. Remember that this is better choice than oral vitamin D because it is the way your body was designed to get healthy levels of vitamin D for breast cancer.
There are many reasons to take vitamin D into account, but today’s study will focus on breast health. A robust and rapidly growing body of research clearly demonstrates that vitamin D is absolutely critical to good health and disease prevention, in part due to the fact that it influences about 10 percent of all its genes.
Just one example of a major gene that vitamin D regulates is its ability to fight infections and chronic inflammation. It also produces more than 200 antimicrobial peptides, most important of which is catelicidin, a broad-spectrum antibiotic of natural origin.
Recent studies show how optimizing your vitamin D levels can lower your LDL cholesterol levels and double your chances of surviving breast cancer. The researchers also claim to have discovered a causal relationship between vitamin D deficiency and autism spectrum disorder.
Vitamin D for Breast Cancer
Since the early 2000s, scientific research on the effects of vitamin D has increased. By the end of 2012, there were nearly 34,000 published studies on the effects of vitamin D, and there are over 800 references in the medical literature that show the efficacy of vitamin D against cancer alone.
According to Carole Baggerly, founder of GrassrootsHealth, as much as 90 percent of common breast cancer may in fact be related to vitamin D deficiency.
More recently, a meta-analysis of five studies published in the March 2014 issue of Anticancer Research1 found that patients diagnosed with breast cancer who had high levels of vitamin D were twice as likely to survive compared to women with low levels .
The analysis included more than 4,500 breast cancer patients over a nine-year period. The high serum group had an average vitamin D level of 30 nanograms per milliliter (ng / ml). Women in the low serum group averaged 17 ng / ml, which is the average level of vitamin D found in patients with breast cancer in the United States.
The study was co-authored by Professor Cedric F. Garland, presented in the 2011 video, along with other researchers from the San Diego School of Medicine. Funding for research6 was provided in part by a congressional allocation to the Penn State Cancer Institute at Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
Vitamin D has a number of anticancer effects, including promoting the death of cancer cells, known as apoptosis, and inhibiting angiogenesis (the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor). According to Dr. Garland:
“While vitamin D receptors were present, tumor growth was prevented and kept from expanding in their blood supply. Vitamin D receptors are not lost until a tumor is very advanced. This is the Reason for better survival in patients whose blood vitamin D levels are high. ”
How Much Vitamin D Is Required For Breast Cancer Prevention?
In 2011, Dr. Garland’s team found that a vitamin D level of 50 ng / ml is associated with a 50 percent lower risk of breast cancer.7,8 (Similarly, a 2007 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine9 concluded that a vitamin D level of more than 33 ng / ml was associated with a 50 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer).
At that time, they discovered that in order to achieve levels of protection, you have to take much more supplemental vitamin D than previously thought. To achieve a minimum level of protection of 40 ng / ml vitamin D, study participants had to take between 1,000 IU and up to 8,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day, far from the recommended daily dose of 600 IU of vitamin D Adults.
The supplemental dose assuring that 97.5 percent of the study population achieved 25 (OH) D serum of at least 40 ng / mL was 9,600 IU / day. This study also concluded that intake of up to 40,000 IU per day is unlikely to result in vitamin D toxicity.
It is important to note, however, that it is virtually impossible to make a general recommendation about the amount of vitamin D to take, since the amount needed may vary significantly from one individual to another. In essence, you need to regularly monitor your levels, and take the amount of vitamin D3 you need to maintain a clinically relevant level.