Doctors Giving Cancer Patients Vitamin D

[Why Syzygy]

(...)
While not all physicians are convinced the evidence is strong enough to warrant taking an extra dollop of the sunshine vitamin, those recommending the course say popping the pills is a simple health strategy that has few, if any, risks and has the added benefit of also improving bone health in those with cancer.

“There is emerging data on breast cancer recurrence rates and vitamin D levels that are quite compelling,” says Tracey O’Connor, an oncologist at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo who treats breast cancer and is having her patients take the vitamin.
Giving vitamin D as part of a treatment program for cancer is still relatively new in the medical community, and Roswell Park is one of the first major cancer institutions in North America to have a number of doctors investigating whether wider use of the nutrient may make a difference in the outcome of the disease.

Speaking at a conference this week in Toronto, Dr. O’Connor outlined a protocol she is using for vitamin D in breast-cancer treatment. It involves giving high doses of the supplement to the most deficient patients immediately after they are diagnosed to quickly raise blood levels of the nutrient.
Dr. O’Connor says that having a low level of vitamin D “is quite common” among women with breast cancer, and most patients, typically about 80 per cent, are either deficient or have insufficient amounts.

Current Health Canada dietary recommendations for vitamin D range from 200 to 600 international units a day, depending on age, and were designed to promote bone health and not the far larger amounts being explored for therapeutic possibilities in cancer treatments.
Dr. O’Connor says some breast-cancer patients have such low stores of the nutrient that they need to embark on a crash course of taking up to 50,000 IU a week for several months to bring up their levels. Other patients whose starting levels aren’t so poor take a few thousand IU a day. She also monitors blood levels to make sure people don’t get too much.
(...)
http://blogs.healthfreedomalliance.org/blog/2009/12/17/doctors-giving-cancer-patients-vitamin-d/

[MannyGoldstein]

1. It's Be Great If This Were Done *Before* People Get Cancer

Might avoid getting cancer, heart disease, MS, and other diseases linked to low Vitamin D.

[postulater]

2. Yup, that's real health reform.

But there's so little profit in it that the Ferengis would disapprove.

[hedgehog]

4. Take a gander at the maps on this site:

http://www.grassrootshealth.net/media/download/20091103garland.pdf

The cancer hots spots either have low sunshine levels and/or are pesticide/petrochem pollution hot spots.

[diane in sf]

6. Thank you, I'll be forwarding the pdf.

[hlthe2b]

3. As one who reads the epidemiology and medical literature religiously

let me affirm that the studies confirming the incredible importance of vitamin D-- for immunity, in general, and for any number of cancers-- as well as the incredible inadequacy of current RDA levels... I encourage DUers to talk to their physician about appropriate levels. Very few of us get sufficient vitamin D produced by being out in the sun anymore (given sunscreen, sunglasses, etc). If your primary care physician says the RDA of 400-600 IU is sufficient for adults, that should be a flag that your provider is not keeping up and you might want to question them further. Nutritional training has been one of the most deficient aspects of medical school training for decades--never more than now, when science is shattering so many preconceived notions.

[4_TN_TITANS]

5. Great insight... tks!

[hedgehog]

7. One of the other PDFs at the site discusses how RDA numbers were selected.

I don't have the text to go with the slides, but the gist appears to be that if the level was sufficient to prevent acute diseases such as scurvy or beri-beri, that was considered the minimum amount. The suspicion is growing that many chronic diseases are actually the result of long term deficiencies.

http://www.grassrootshealth.net/

[wuvuj]

8. I'd say calcium is more or as important as VitD?

Also colon cancer....

http://www.lef.org/LEFCMS/aspx/PrintVersionMagic.aspx?CmsID=112663

Calcium.

A wealth of evidence supports calcium’s role in colon cancer prevention. Dr. Harold Newmark, a Rutgers University-based authority on cancer prevention, has called on the FDA to require the addition of calcium and vitamin D to all cereal-grain products. In a recent article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Newmark wrote that the addition of these two nutrients could reduce colon cancer deaths by 20%, saving about 11,000 American lives and over $1 billion in US health care costs annually.19 Newmark also noted that the addition of vitamin D and calcium to cereal-grain products would likely reduce the incidence of osteoporotic fractures by 20%.19

The American College of Gastroenterology has recommended calcium supplementation for the primary or secondary prevention of colon adenomas.20 Harvard School of Public Health researchers have noted that higher total calcium intake is associated with a 27-42% decreased rate of cancer of the distal colon.21 Calcium in amounts of more than 700 mg daily appeared to offer minimal benefit in further risk reduction, according to the Harvard scientists.21 Calcium supplementation could reduce the number of colon cancer deaths by 16,000 annually, reports the American Cancer Society.

Evidence also suggests that calcium confers the most protection against the advanced polyps that are most strongly associated with invasive colorectal cancer. In the Calcium Polyp Prevention Study, researchers analyzed data from 930 patients (with an average age of 61) who had recently had a colorectal adenoma removed. The subjects took either a 1200-mg daily calcium supplement or placebo, then had follow-up colonoscopies at one and four years after starting supplementation.22 Calcium supplementation yielded an 18% lower risk of hyperplastic polyps and an 11% lower risk of tubular adenoma. Most significant, however, was a 35% reduction in histologically advanced neoplasms, an advanced form of colorectal lesion.22 The protective effect of calcium supplements was most pronounced among people with a high dietary intake of fiber and a low intake of fat.24 Calcium is thought to protect colon cells by precipitating fatty acids and bile acids that are potentially toxic to the colorectal epithelium.23


Vitamin D.

While most experts acknowledge that calcium alone is chemopreventive against colon cancer, biochemical and biological evidence in cell culture systems suggests that exposure to calcium and vitamin D together may confer even more protection, reducing the tumor-forming properties of colon cancer cells.23

In late 2003, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published groundbreaking research on vitamin D’s role in preventing colon cancer. In this study, researchers concluded that calcium and vitamin D work together to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer. Their four-year study followed 803 patients with a history of surgically removed colon adenoma polyps. Subjects who took 1200 mg of elemental calcium daily experienced a 31% occurrence of polyps compared to a 38% occurrence in the placebo group.24

Most revealingly, calcium supplements helped to prevent polyps only among participants with high levels of vitamin D levels in their bodies. Additionally, vitamin D levels were linked to reduced polyp recurrence only among those subjects who took calcium supplements. These findings strongly suggest that vitamin D and calcium have a synergistic anti-cancer effect in the bowel and may be far less effective when not used in combination.24

http://www.lef.org/LEFCMS/aspx/PrintVersionMagic.aspx?CmsID=116951

[hlthe2b]

9. Calcium is far more ubiquitous in the American diet...

The problem is that the body needs Calcium, Vit D and Magnesium for most functions.... the latter two are far more likely to be deficient

[Manifestor_of_Light]

10. Word to the Wise:

http://www.vetvax.com/injectablevitamins.html