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15.01.2025


This daily dose of vitamin D3 inhibits prostate cancer in its early stages | Pilot study

A high vitamin D level inhibits the division of prostate cells and improves the prospects of men with prostate cancer, we recently wrote. Does this also mean that vitamin D supplementation is beneficial for men with prostate cancer? According to a small American pilot study from 2012, this could well be the case.


This daily dose of vitamin D3 inhibits prostate cancer in its early stages | Pilot study


Study
David Marshall, an oncologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, gave 44 men with early prostate cancer 4,000 IU of vitamin D3 every day for a year. Marshall used vitamin D3 in gel capsules. The vitamin D3 was dissolved in vegetable oil.

The men had a PSA of 10 or lower and a Gleason score of 6 or lower. The clinical stage of their cancer was T1c or T2a. The latter means that cancer has been found in a biopsy of the prostate, but that the cancer is still small. There is no sign of metastasis yet.

Results
When Marshall compared his study participants to male patients at the same stage of the disease who were not given supplements, he saw that during the trial the study participants did better than the control group. The oncologist looked at the number of tumors that showed up in the biopsies during the year and the Gleason scores.

Click on the figures below for a larger version.


This daily dose of vitamin D3 inhibits prostate cancer in its early stages | Pilot study


In the men who received vitamin D3, the number of biopsies that were positive for prostate cancer decreased over the year. In the control group, the number of positive biopsies actually increased over the year.

You can see this below.


This daily dose of vitamin D3 inhibits prostate cancer in its early stages | Pilot study


Vitamin D levels
Vitamin D3 supplementation had no side effects, as far as the researchers could determine. Supplementation did, of course, increase vitamin D levels, but they did not reach levels that would cause physicians to worry about toxicity.

"Supplementation with 4000 IU/day for 1 year elevated circulating 25(OH)D to a range recently recommended by The Endocrine Society practice guidelines," the researchers write.

"These guidelines, compared with those of the Food and Nutritional Board of the IOM, recommend a 2- to 3-fold increase in vitamin D intake, with a tolerable upper intake level of 10000 IU/day."

Source:
J Clin Endocrinol Metab. July 2012, 97(7):2315-24.

More:
Prostate cancer | High vitamin D levels improve prognosis 12.01.2025
Higher vitamin D levels, lower PSA 06.01.2025
How a soya and vitamin D combination kills prostate cancer cells 10.03.2013

Archives:
Prevention & Survival of Cancer
Prostate Health
Vitamin D
Vitamins


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Not only tomatoes, but also carrots protect against prostate cancer
Interesting epidemiological data from Vietnam.

Supplementation with MCP slows prostate cancer
This small human study involved 10 men with prostate cancer.

Enough selenium in the diet gives prostate cancer less chance
This is suggested in a Dutch study published in 2013 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.