While medical researchers still won’t claim that they have found a cure for cancer, they may have come pretty close with the newest discovery about an important essential vitamin.
Over the last 30 years, evidence has accumulated that shows higher vitamin D levels may prevent cancer. Since 1980, 16 different cancers have been shown to be associated with low vitamin D!
One of the biggest issues tying cancer to vitamin D deficiency is that too few people actually know how to determine if they are lacking the vitamin. While the only way to confirm a vitamin D deficiency is a blood test, there are many signs that an individual may be lacking the vitamin.
Common indicators of vitamin D deficiency include:
Vitamin D’s effect for those who already have cancer
The current thinking is that vitamin D, as calcitriol, may help your body ward off cancer before it forms or that it slows and kills cancer cells at the earliest stages (soon after they’ve formed) so that it never develops into a disease that needs treatment by a doctor.
The reason for this is that cancer is a creative disease. It figures out ways to get around all of the protections your body has to fight it. For example, whereas your immune system normally recognizes abnormal cells and kills them, tumors have developed ways to shut down this protection.
The same thing also seems to be happening with vitamin D. There is evidence that as cancer moves through the stages to become more advanced, it makes it harder for vitamin D to work. In some cancers the level or function of the vitamin D receptor is reduced; in others, enzymes that break down calcitriol are increased; and in others, the production of calcitriol is shut down in the cancer tissue.