Yet another Vitamin D thread, but for other cancers

It does not hurt to have your Vitamin D level check to see if you are low. There are many studies showing vitamin D importance in fighting disease. Your body needs certain vitamins and minerals to stay healthy. That gives our immune system what it needs to fight disease. The immune system is the doctor inside us. Hippocrates the father of western medicine understood this when he said "Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food". That is why it is important to eat healthy. You are what you eat. When you look at today's population you can see there is a big problem with obesity. This a precursor for disease. Disease may be the result of all the chemicals being added to our food today. When God put Adam and Eve in the garden he instructions was to eat the fruits and vegetables bearing seeds. That was his instruction to us for having good health. Taking one supplement such as vitamin D may not cure your disease. It is just one part of good health. You need to make sure you are getting all the vitamins and minerals necessary to fight disease and keep all the toxins out of your body. They put things like hydrogenated oils in the food we eat to preserve the freshness. Things like bacteria and mold will not eat hydrogenated oils so the food will last a long time. The bacteria and mold are pretty smart and will not eat things that will harm them. If it is not good for the bacteria and mold it is not good for us. Check out the ingredients in what you are eating and make sure it is real food. You can do nothing about your genetics but what you put in your body can express those genes. That is why it is important to put only good things in your body. Eating a healthy diet is the key to good health.

You are correct and the problem is knowing what level works. We are all different so how do you know how much you need? My thoughts are God put the necessary vitamins and minerals in the foods we were suppose to eat. Problem is today many are not eating the appropriate foods to supply the vitamins and minerals. When I was detoxifying I took large amounts of vitamins and supplements recommended for detoxification. It worked for me. Now most of the vitamins and minerals comes from the foods I eat. I take very few supplements any more. My diet consist of mainly raw fruits and vegetables. That is the best way to get the vitamins and minerals needed for good health. I have done hair analysis to verify my vitamin and mineral levels are good. You cannot get enough vitamin D from the food you eat. It is the sunshine vitamin and best to get it from sunlight. I was eating salmon and taking cod liver oil. Thought my vitamin D level was OK. I had it check and I was 19 ng/ml. The recommended amount for good health as determine by the VA hospital is 30 to 90 ng/ml. I took 5000 IU of vitamin D3 for 4 months and got my level up to 72 ng/ml. In the summer time I live in an area where I can get my vitamin D from the sun. In the winter time I have a sunscreen. Been able to keep my level up without taking vitamin D supplements. We should all get tested for the vitamins and minerals necessary for good health and take appropriate actions to get the appropriate levels. It is the vitamins and minerals which allow the body to heal itself.

Come on Timmy, be nice! Sorry couldn't help it but I agree with you!

Cheers, Doug

Sorry you do not agree with the information I have posted. I have never declaimed any ones approach to health. It is up to each of us to decide how we want to treat our disease. We need to have all the information in order to make a decision. I do not have prostate cancer. Is it necessary to have the disease to give information on the subject? Not sure why any one would be against checking a person's vitamin D level. There is information suggesting vitamin D can be helpful in fighting cancer.

Shortly before being diagnosed with PC, I was found to have celiac disease. celiac makes if difficult for the body to absorb vitamins. My vitamin D level was at 14, normal being 30-50. I too have read that low vitamin d is a contributor to PC. I am now gluten free and take a supplement for vit. d
My level has returned to a normal 47. and I've been in the zero club for 1 year now

Allen(et All):
I finally got around to fully reading your link, sorry for the delay. But it is indeed interesting. Mainly in that it directly contradicts so many other studies, some examples of which I have linked to earlier, relating to both non-PC cancers and PC.

The first thing that jumps out at me is this U-shaped curve. It is definitely there. But not in the way I was thinking you meant. I thought you meant the risk for aggressive PC went up(in this study anyway) with the higher levels and maybe the lower levels, with the U-shaped curve showing best results in the middle blood levels. In fact, to a comment of mine in a different thread about a similar(or was it the same study?) study where I said, somewhat sarcastically I guess, something like “ what we learn from this study is the lowest levels of Vit D are best”, you responded to me with something like “that would be an unwarranted conclusion or assumption”, then giving more info about the U shaped curve. I think I defended my conclusion from that study, even though I didn't necessarily actually agree with that conclusion, that is what the study seemed to be showing.

But now when I look closely to this study you have linked, it seems to be showing evidence for the very same thing I argued previously: the best levels are the lowest levels. And there is a U shaped curve, but it does not point to the middle having the lowest aggressive PC, but rather the highest risk, and also lowest Vit D blood levels are lowest risk. However, the highest levels are a good bit closer to the lowest levels(in both blood levels and risk or odds) than the middle. Here is the copy and paste from that link, showing Odds Ratio(OR) and rates of aggressive PC per quintile:
jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/100/11/796.full.pdf

“However, serum 25(OH)D concentrations greater than the lowest quintile (Q1) were associated with increased risk of aggressive (Gleason sum ≥7 or clinical stage III or IV) disease (in
a model adjusting for matching factors, study center, and history of diabetes,

ORs for Q2 vs Q1 = 1.20, 95% CI = 0.80 to 1.81,
for Q3 vs Q1 =1.96, 95% CI = 1.34 to 2.87,
for Q4 vs Q1 = 1.61, 95% CI = 1.09 to 2.38, and
for Q5 vs Q1 = 1.37, 95% CI = 0.92 to 2.05; Ptrend= .05).

The rates of aggressive prostate cancer for increasing quintiles of serum 25(OH)D were 406, 479, 780, 633, and 544 per 100 000 person-years”

Notice that the rates per 100,000 person years for Q3(middle at 780) were 1.43 times higher than Q5 and 1.9 times higher than Q1(lowest blood levels. Also notice that the Q5(highest blood levels) had only 1.3 times higher risk than the lowest/best levels, probably barely significant.

Wow! What are we to make of such results, if anything? Clearly- by this study- there is a U shaped curve indicating the highest risk in the middle, with the lowest being on both extremes, and the absolute lowest risk with the lowest levels? Especially when it conflicts wildly with several other studies? The folks with the lowest blood levels have 406 cases of aggressive PC per 100,000 person years, the highest levels have 544, and the middle have a whopping 780.

I assume I do not know enough about how to read such studies. That must be why I don't quite get the authors conclusions, which is: “The findings of this large prospective study do not support the hypothesis that vitamin D is associated with decreased risk of prostate cancer; indeed, higher circulating 25(OH)D concentrations may be associated with increased risk of aggressive disease. ”. It seems to me that is true when comparing the very lowest levels to all others, but it seems that by far the highest risk they found was in the middle levels, and that the very highest levels barely had higher risk than the very lowest. Where am I going wrong, why didn't they state it this way?

Here is a possible reason for these wild results from there own words: “Limitations
Only a single baseline vitamin D measurement was available. Whether vitamin D levels could affect prostate-specific antigen levels in some cancers, causing a diagnosis bias, is not known. As
with all epidemiology studies, unmeasured confounders could account for the results. ”. Didn't you(or someone else?) tell us once that epidemiology studies were the most unreliable?

Another impressive thing in this study is that the mean IU intake for Vitamin D was only 416, which is not very high at all. And the mean blood level was 59 nmol/L( about 23.6 ng/L?), not very low, but still below the level many studies label as deficient(<25ng/L). Still, since so many folks report not being able to get above the 25 even with 1000-2000IUs per day supplementation, I am surprised the mean level is even this high (i.e. 59 nmol/L or 24ng) with a mere mean 400 IUs per day. Indeed, 200 of ~ 749 participants took less than 200 IUs per day, and over 1/2, 440, took <400 IUs per day. Only 49 took > 1000.

Another is- not so surprising considering the relatively low mean intake- is that the two outliers who have the very highest levels in the study are only (when converted) about 56 ng/L, not really all that high and a level that shows good results in many studies.

OK, I'm sure an answer for these surprising results lie somewhere in the details of the study, but I am tired out from searching through it for clues. But looking at their raw numbers, I just am not getting that the very highest levels are any more risky than the lower level, except when compared only to the very lowest, and then not by much. And indeed, higher = less risky than the middle. I'm not getting that any reasonable amount of supplementation is a significant risk to us, even before considering other studies. Indeed, few people in this study were even taking very much Vit D at all. Where am I going wrong?
Bill

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 2/18/2015 10:06:11 AM (GMT-7)

@billybob
I take 2000 iu everyday
It keeps my vitamin d steady in the high 40 range

Thank you Allen for that thorough response. My posts are sometimes lengthy, and I can understand you not having either time or desire to read all of them. But this last one was lengthy because I was working through the details of your linked study, and copying and pasting a good bit from it to show that it did not exactly show a U shaped curve pointing to the highest levels of Vitamin D having the highest risk, in my opinion.

In a similar vein, I probably will not be reading your links, not all at least, rather I will just take your word for what they say. I don't have the time, or at least energy, to pour over lengthy studies in detail like I did in previous post.

You say "In fact, I could only find two research studies that showed that higher plasma Vitamin D was associated with better PC prognosis", and you seem to think they may not be the greatest studies. But after you challenged me because I presented a study re: blood levels of Vit D in lymphoma patients rather than sticking to strictly PC, I then provided you with two recent studies that, in my opinion, present about as good a level of evidence as any of these other studies, whichever way they go.

You say "I don't know why you are touting Vitamin D supplementation when there is no good evidence for it. You seem to be fighting hard to continue this conversation, without shedding additional light".
Sorry, but I think you are totally incorrect in that assessment. First, I have no desire for anyone to take Vitamin D or C/K or anything else. For all I know, some day there will be evidence- conclusively- that it is as you seem to think: it is all worthless and even harmful. You may turn out to be right. But in the mean time, when I come upon a study- like the 3 at the start of this thread- that seem to show some- even strong- evidence for whatever- I see nothing wrong in posting it for consideration. Just exactly as you keep posting links that show evidence against it. I don't really see the difference. Except, if I discover a study with strong evidence against whatever, I don't mind posting that also. Though the studies are clearly out there (see the links at the beginning of this thread) in favor, I'm not seeing those from you, at least not in the relatively short time I have been here.

And I disagree with "without shedding additional light". I think the links I provided earlier for studies showing such as:
"In the SELECT study, plasma 25-OHD levels were associated with a
linear decrease in prostate cancer risk for high-grade cancers in African American men and an apparent "U"-shaped effect in other men. The "U-shaped" curve may reflect detection bias. In the PCPT study, in which detection bias was minimized, serum 25-OHD levels were associated with a linear decrease in the risk of high-grade prostate cancers. The results from these large prevention trials support the hypothesis that circulating levels of 25-OHD decrease the risk of clinically relevant prostate cancers..”"
AND
"For Gleason 8-10 prostate cancers, 25(OH)D concentrations were associated with a linear decrease in risk among combined treatment arms [quartile 4 vs. 1: OR, 0.55; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.32-0.94; P(trend) = 0.04]. These findings were somewhat stronger among men ≥65 versus 55-64 years at baseline (quartile 4 vs. 1: OR, 0.40; 95% CI, 0.18-0.88 vs. OR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.35-1.52, respectively; P(interaction) = 0.52).
CONCLUSIONS:
Higher serum 25(OH)D may modestly increase risk of Gleason 2-6 disease and more substantially reduce risk of Gleason 8-10 prostate cancer.", both shed additional light. Are you saying that having less than 1/2 the odds of G8-10 for the highest levels of Vitamin D is not worth considering?

So, If I copy such as that, then may I ask "How is that not shedding light?". Why is it shedding light when you post the opposite, but not when I post studies such as the above?

And if I go to your links, and rebut the conclusions you have made from those links- by copying and pasting from those links to show why I am not seeing what you see in those studies- why is that not shedding light? Unless you are saying that I am incorrect to say that there is no U shaped curve(in that study you 1st linked) showing that the highest levels have the highest risk, but rather the highest and lowest levels had LOWER risk(by a good bit) than the middle? Am I wrong about that? If not, then how am I not shedding light?

Allen, I suspect you might have a strong anti-natural, pro-medical/prescription/patent drug bias, and I probably have at least as much the opposite bias. Still, I say let the evidence fall where it may. True, I would LOVE it if there were cheap vitamins or diets or sunshine that could help ones health in whatever manner. But in the end, that may not be the case. So be it. But as it stands right now, I don't see that you have provided much if any more evidence against this one supplement- Vitamin D- than the evidence for it that is out there. A couple of examples of which are in this thread. I see your evidence against, you seem to be refusing to see the evidence for it. Still, in the study you linked to that I covered in the last post, I do NOT see strong evidence against high levels of Vitamin D, except somewhat(1.3 times worse) when comparing the highest to the lowest, with the middle being significantly worse than either. In fact, it might be said that- except for the lowest level Q1, risk keeps dropping the higher you go above Q3, until significantly lower at Q5 which was for a blood level really not all that high. Who knows how it would have ended if levels had gone even higher? We do not know.

For now I am sick of Vit D discussions, and of debating, so I am going to do my best to stop here, last word to whoever is interested.
Bill

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 2/18/2015 2:14:03 PM (GMT-7)