Can vitamin D supplements reverse prostate cancer?

Vitamin D, also known as the sunshine vitamin, is an essential part of one's nutrition. Previous studies have revealed that it can play a major role in preventing age related diseases and also diseases like colorectal cancer. Vitamin D deficiency can also cause depression and recurrent flu. Proving the importance of vitamin D in one's diet, a new study claims that regular supplements of the vitamin can prevent prostate cancer from worsening and diminish the need for surgery or radiation.

Bruce Hollis from the Medical University of South Carolina explained that they were not sure if vitamin D could treat or prevent prostate cancer but at least it can prevent lower-grade prostate cancers from going haywire. The findings were presented at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, in Denver, US. (Read:Revealed - The negative side of excess Vitamin D)

In cases of low-grade prostate cancer, many urologists do not treat the disease, but instead do what's called 'active surveillance,' Hollis explained. As a man must wait 60 days from the time of his biopsy before he can undergo a prostatectomy, so that inflammation from the biopsy can subside, Hollis wondered if giving these men vitamin D supplements during the 60-day waiting period would affect their prostate cancer.

In a new randomised, controlled clinical trial, his team assigned 37 men undergoing elective prostatectomies either to a group that received 4,000 units of vitamin D per day or to a placebo group that did not receive vitamin D. The men's prostate glands were removed and examined 60 days later. Preliminary results from this study indicated that many of the men who received vitamin D showed improvements in their prostate tumours, whereas the tumours in the placebo group either stayed the same or got worse. (Read: Can vitamin D cause diabetes and atherosclerosis?)

Also, vitamin D caused dramatic changes in the expression levels of many cell lipids and proteins, particularly those involved in inflammation. 'Cancer is associated with inflammation, especially in the prostate gland,' Hollis noted. 'Vitamin D is really fighting this inflammation within the gland,' Hollis added.

With inputs from IANS

Images source: Getty Images

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