Many doctors still ignore the strong data on cancer prevention and vitamin D (25-hydroxy vitamin D) levels. They still seem happy with any vitamin D level, as long as it’s in the normal range.
The so-called normal range for vitamin D is any value greater than 30 ng/ml, but studies consistently show that to achieve the maximum cancer-preventive effect of vitamin D, levels must be significantly higher than this.
In fact, if you want to prevent cancer, your vitamin D levels must be in the upper end of the range – 50-60 ng/ml. Now a new study validates this effect, especially for liver cancers.
The researchers followed 33,736 men and women from 1990 to 2009. Before the study began, they measured their vitamin D levels. At the end of the study, 3,301 had developed cancer. Then they compared the vitamin D levels of the patients with cancer to those who never developed cancer.
Here’s what they found.
The men and women with the highest levels of vitamin D, levels that were well above the low normal of 30 ng/ml, were 25% less likely to get cancer of any kind. And when they looked at specific kinds of cancer, they found that the cancer that was most prevented was cancer of the liver. The people with the highest vitamin D levels were 45% less likely to get liver cancer.
The researchers put it this way, “In this large prospective study, higher vitamin D concentration was associated with lower risk of total cancer. These findings support the hypothesis that vitamin D has protective effects against cancers at many sites.”
That means that one of the easiest and most cost-effective things you can do to prevent cancer is to take enough vitamin D to get your levels up around 50-60 ng/ml. This often means taking considerably more vitamin D than the RDA (recommended daily allowance). But know this. Vitamin D is extremely safe.
Vitamin D toxicity does not even begin to show up until blood levels are considerably higher than the maximum of 100 ng/ml. If your levels are below 50 ng/ml, increase your intake until they fall into the cancer-preventive range.
Yours for better health,
Frank Shallenberger, MD
REF: : Budhathoki S, Hidaka A, et al., Plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration and subsequent risk of total and site specific cancers in Japanese population: large case-cohort study within Japan Public Health Center-based Prospective Study cohort. BMJ. 2018 Mar 7;360:k671.