Vitamin D3 & Gleason 6. A relationship?

Glad you have good results from the 6000IU of vitamin D. Maybe your post will help someone. For sure many people are deficient in Vitamin D and it cost very little to fix it. The range that was given to me by the VA was 30-90 ng/ml. With the 6000IU you are taking you are surely under the 90 ng/ml. I would not stop doing what works for you.

Dave, one thing is almost certain: your some what high intake of vit D has certainly not hurt you, according to anything you are able to measure in a lab or via biopsy. The only way it could be argued that they have hurt you is if some one was to argue that, had you not taken these doses of vit D, your PSA and Bx results most likely would have spontaneously improved by an even larger amount. I doubt anyone is going to argue that. Although that is indeed possible, it seems highly unlikely.

At the other end of the scale is the argument that you vit D supplements are the actual cause for your improvements. This is indeed possible, but no way to prove it. But I'd say that since lab/Bx strongly points to no harm, soldier on, Brother! I soldier on in a similar fashion, until I see some good study evidence to not do that, evidence of harm.

I am in a similar situation. I have taken 4000 to 5000 Iu's per day(at least when I don't forget, I get it most days) OR get a good dose of southern sun on a lot of skin. ( I don't normally do both). Last time my level was checked it was 80, and I cut back from the 10,000 I had been taking shooting more for the 40-60 range.(had only reached 30 with 2000/day). I have done this for the 3 years since I was diagnosed with a G9 high risk case, had RP, with a positive margin and seminal vesicle invasion. After surgery, my PSA remained < .01 for 18 months. Then unfortunately I lost my < sign and measure .01. I kept this .01 for the next year, but at my 3 year test a couple of days ago, I had gone up to .02.

So did Vit D help me, hurt me, or do nothing? Who knows? However, considering my less than stellar pathology, I lean towards the same thing I say about you. It was pretty likely that I would have had a full blown recurrence by now with PSA > .2, or at the very least would have gone up a lot more than I have. So the likelihood- seems to me- is no harm, no foul. But no way to ever really know for sure, no scientific proof. I just think the odds are I would have done worse than I have, and the odds are that I would NOT have done a lot better( I am surgery only ). I think some folks have RT and/or ADT automatically with a pathology like mine, with out even waiting for BCR > .2. So the odds seem to me that high Vit D has not hurt me, since the odds are quite high that I could not have done much better if I had NOT been taking such high doses of Vit D. But, who knows? I don't. I'm just guessing, no scientific proof.

Now, have I done better than expected because I took vitamin D and other dietary or supplemental interventions? Or am I just one of those outliers, and nothing I have done has really made any difference? I have no idea. But with lack of evidence of harm, either from my personal results or the majority(but not all!) of the studies I have seen so far, I think I will just keep on keeping on until the evidence tells me I should not.

Good luck to you, Dave!

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 3/29/2017 10:22:15 AM (GMT-6)

Gemlin said...
How do you suppose it works on cellular level to defeat cancer? Do you really believe that the Vitamin D molecules are capable to distinguish between normal healthy cells and prostate cancer cells and then only enters into cancer cells and trigger apoptosis or inhibit cell division? Some unique "ports" that only cancer cells have in their membrans? I'm skeptical but if it was true, fantastic news.

Are you asking me, or Dave or just anyone? Because, if me, I don't know if it even does, for certain, defeat cancer. Not many RCTs one way or another, and I guess there is no proof until there are, right? I have seen some in vitro as well as in vivo/animal studies where increasing apoptosis seemed to be a main factor.

Here was an old(6 or 7 years) in vitro test tube study. Not worth much, as there are dozens or hundreds of these, some with good results and some with poor. And this was not even a Vitamin D study, but rather the combination of Vitamin C and vitamin K given together in some ratio, and this test was to see what other substances might interfere with the VC/VK combo, as melatonin did big time. But one of the substances tested in combo with the VC/VK was Vit D. But the reason I'm bringing this one up is because the C/K combo was said to work by causing hydrogen peroxide- in a Pro-oxident fashion- to kill the cancer cells. But the vitamin D also did a great job in combo with the C/K, or alone. I'm not sure they said how it did it, I'll have to read it again:
www.altmedrev.com/publications/15/4/345.pdf