Vitamin D May Help Low-Risk Prostate Cancer Patients

by | Feb 12, 2013 | 2012, Cancer, Men's Health - Prostate, Prostate Cancer, Vitamin D - General

Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. Treatment with vitamin D was associated with an improvement in a marker for prostate cancer in 55% of a test group.

Prostate cancer is second only to skin cancer as the most deadly cancer in men. In 2011, prostate cancer was responsible for more than 33,000 deaths and is expected to be newly diagnosed in 238,590 American men and cause 29,720 deaths in 2013 (1).

There are a number of treatment options for those with prostate cancer, ranging from prostate removal to radioactive implants to no treatment at all.  Unfortunately, no one treatment has been found to be superior (2). Because prostate cancer is often a slow-progressing disease, options like surgery for low-grade, low-risk prostate cancer are becoming less favored due to major side effects that include urinary incontinence, rectal irritation, and erectile dysfunction. Now a new study (3) suggests that vitamin D may help those with low-grade, low-risk prostate cancer.

Previous research has shown vitamin D to help prostate cancer cells to mature (“differentiate”) and thereby stop dividing (4) and also decrease the activity of an inflammatory enzyme called COX-2 which is “thought to be important for cancer progression” (5). Building on these findings, 44 patients diagnosed with early stage, low-risk prostate cancer (Gleason score of 6 or less, prostate specific  antigen levels of 10 or lower (6)) received 4,000 IU per day of vitamin D for one year and provided prostate tissue samples  before and after the study to examine for prostate cancer progression. The dose of vitamin D was chosen because it has been used in previous research for patients undergoing “active surveillance” of their prostate cancer (6).

By the end of one year, no patients had any signs of vitamin D deficiency, increasing their vitamin D blood levels by an average of 102% (32.8 to 66.2 nanograms/milliliter,p < 0.00001) with no adverse events reported from the 4,000 IU per day of vitamin D. Regarding the biopsy tissue samples, the patients experienced a 19% decrease in the “positive cores” indicating prostate cancer (2.1 to 1.7 positive cores in the biopsy).

The researchers then used the core results and combined them with the Gleason scores before and after the study. They found that while 34% of patients (15 patients) saw a progression in their prostate cancer (defined as an increase in positive cores and an increase in Gleason score), 11% (5 patients) showed no change and 24 patients (55%) showed “improvement”, defined as a decrease in positive cores and no increase in Gleason score at their biopsy after the study (p = 0.025).

For the researchers, “Vitamin D3 supplementation may not only provide a significant addition to active surveillance, but also help us avoid the overtreatment of low-risk disease in subjects who respond to an intervention strategy that appears to be safe and is extremely cost-effective.”

Source: Hollis, Bruce W., et al. “Vitamin D 3 supplementation, low-risk prostate cancer, and health disparities.” The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology 136 (2013): 233-237.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors

Posted February 12, 2013.

Greg Arnold is a Chiropractic Physician practicing in Hauppauge, NY.  You can contact Dr. Arnold directly by emailing him at PitchingDoc@msn.com or visiting his web site at www.PitchingDoc.com

References:

  1. ”What are the Key Statistics About Prostate Cancer?” from the American Cancer Society Website
  2. “No Answers for Men with Prostate Cancer” – New York Times February 5, 2008
  3. Hollis BW. Vitamin D3 supplementation, low-risk prostate cancer, and health disparities.  J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol 2012 Dec 7. pii: S0960-0760(12)00245-2. doi: 10.1016/j.jsbmb.2012.11.012
  4. Schwartz GG.  Vitamin D and the epidemiology of prostate cancer, Seminars in Dialysis 2005;276–289
  5. Moreno J.  Regulation of prostaglandin metabolism by calcitriol attenuates growth stimulation 456 in prostate cancer cells, Cancer research 2005; 65: 7917–7925
  6. For more information on what the Gleason and prostate specific antigen scores mean, you can visit the “Prostate Cancer” web page of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
  7. Marshall DT.  Vitamin D3 supplementation at 4,000 376 IU per day for one year results in a decrease of positive cores at repeat biopsy 377 in subjects with low-risk prostate cancer under active surveillance, Journal of 378 Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 97 (2012) 2315–2324. 379.