Cancer is the most complex and seemingly unpredictable disease that afflicts humans. Sometimes it seems obvious why someone gets cancer, e.g. heavy smoking, drinking to excess, and eating a very poor diet, or exposure to known carcinogens.  We all know of people who have seemingly outsmarted cancer despite pursuing chancy lifestyle choices. This suggests that there is something more involved. Discover these missing links - our articles aim to provide you with tips to help you outsmart cancer. Is that really possible, you might ask? The answer is YES!  Make the decision to give yourself the best chance you can to live a long and healthy life.

Do you know your vitamin D Level? – make sure you do!

Vitamin D deficiency is widespread with 60 to 70% of people being deficient, and is often overlooked and not tested for. Various studies have shown a correlation between vitamin D and a higher risk of getting cancer or surviving cancer. Researchers have found that insufficient vitamin D levels can be associated with an increased risk of developing breast, colorectal and prostate cancer (1). Vitamin D is thought to affect the outcome of cancer in several ways: -
  • By promoting cell differentiation
  • Regulating programmed cellular death (apoptosis)
  • Limiting the spread of cancer metastasis
  • Limiting the growth of tumour blood supply (angiogenesis) (2)
Vitamin D, which is made in large amounts in the skin when it is exposed to the sun, is not actually a true vitamin but is a steroid hormone. We all need the sun’s rays on our skin to initiate the production of natural vitamin D, however caution is required not to overdo it. We need to maintain a safe level of exposure so as not to damage our skin. The sun’s most damaging rays occur during the hottest part of the day between 10 am and 3 pm. When we are exposed to approximately 20 minutes of sunlight, our skin cells can produce up to 25,000 IU of vitamin D. Interestingly, cholesterol in our skin is required for this process to take place. However, if you take cholesterol lowering drugs (statins), this process may radically reduce your cholesterol production, causing the synthesis of vitamin D to become depleted. In addition to skin manufacture from sunlight, small amounts of vitamin D can be found in foods such as oily fish, canned fish, cod liver oil, liver, eggs, dairy products and fortified juice. Dietary sources alone are unreliable, however. Vitamin D supplementation may be the simplest and safest way, in many cases, and has been associated with improved outcomes for cancer, osteoporosis, immune disorders, inflammation and fighting viruses. In supplement form, the current recommendations are that you take between 400 and 1000 IU of vitamin D 3 daily. Many people, especially those who avoid the sun or those living in cold countries, need much more than this, and doses of around 5000 IU daily may be needed before you can get your blood levels of vitamin D into the higher desirable range. In people with a severe vitamin D deficiency, or those with poor intestinal absorption of vitamin D, the use of vitamin D injections containing 600,000 IU, can be excellent and give a person all the vitamin D they need for 12 months. Regardless of how you get it, make sure that you have an adequate amount of vitamin D in your body. It is easy to check your body’s levels of vitamin D with a simple blood test. If your levels are below, or at the lower limit of the normal range, please take a vitamin D 3 supplement and get some sunshine on your skin. Recheck your blood levels after 3 months to ensure your vitamin D increases to the higher limit of the normal range. Make sure that you do not become deficient in vitamin D again.

Blood levels of Vitamin D

It is vitally important to ask your doctor to check your blood level of vitamin D. The correct blood test to measure your vitamin D level is called 25(OH) D, also called 25-hydroxyvitamin D3. Vitamin D can be measured in two different units of measurement and in the USA the units used are ng/mL. In Australia and Canada the units of measurement are nmol/L. The normal ranges of vitamin D for blood tests reported by different laboratories and countries vary significantly and you will be surprised by the large range between lower normal and upper normal – see table below.
Lower Limit Vitamin D Upper Limit Vitamin D
75 nmol/L 200 nmol/L
30 ng/mL 80 ng/mL
You don't want to be average here; you want to have levels of vitamin D that optimize your immune system to fight infection and inflammation. The optimal levels of vitamin D are higher than the average levels. I recommend you take enough supplements of vitamin D 3 and/or get enough sunshine to keep your serum vitamin D levels around 150 to 200 nmol/L or 70 to 80ng/mL. Excess vitamin D intake can cause elevated blood calcium levels; so don’t overdose on it - it’s not a case of the more the better. Get your blood level checked every 6 months to find the dose of vitamin D 3 that keeps you in the optimal levels. References (1) Chen TC et al 2003; Studzinski GP et al 1995). (2) Van den Bemd GJ, Chang GT. Vitamin D and vitamin D analogs in cancer treatment. Curr Drug Targets. 2002 Feb;3(1):85-94.2 .