Study Finds Calcium and Vitamin D Blood Levels Linked to Ovarian Cancer

by | Aug 17, 2010 | 2010, Calcium, Cancer, Vitamin D - Cancer, Women's Health

Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. Those with the highest blood levels of vitamin D had a 68% decreased risk of ovarian cancer while those with the highest blood levels of calcium had a 59% decreased risk.

Ovarian cancer accounts for approximately 4 percent of all women’s cancers and is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death among women in the United States. Despite having a decline in the incidence rate since the early 1990s, ovarian cancer has the highest mortality of all cancers of the female reproductive system, with over $2 billion spent in the United States each year on treatment of ovarian cancer (1). Since ovarian cancer has very few symptoms, diagnosis is usually not made until the cancer has become advanced.  This has led to a primary focus on prevention, with $100 million spent in 2005 to improve screening tests for ovarian cancer (2).

Now a new study (5) has found that having proper levels of both calcium and vitamin D may also help maintain female reproductive health.  In the study, researchers analyzed vitamin D blood levels in 172 women with ovarian cancer and compared them to vitamin D blood levels in 172 women without ovarian cancer from the Finnish Maternity Cohort (6).  They found “a significant inverse association between both calcium and vitamin D levels and ovarian cancer risk.  Regarding calcium, those with the highest calcium blood levels (> 2.6 mmol/L) had a 59% decrease risk of ovarian cancer compared to those with the lowest blood calcium levels (< 2.2 mmol/L).  When looking at vitamin D blood levels, those having blood levels  >75nmol/L had a 68% reduced risk of ovarian cancer compared to those with vitamin D blood levels < 50 nmol/L.

For the researchers, “The decreased risk of ovarian cancer associated with pre-diagnostic serum calcium and vitamin D needs to be evaluated further for possible new insights into ovarian cancer prevention.”

Source: Toriola, Adetunji T., et al. “Independent and joint effects of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and calcium on ovarian cancer risk: A prospective nested case–control study.” European Journal of Cancer 46.15 (2010): 2799-2805.

© 2010 Elsevier B.V. or its licensors or contributors

Posted August 18, 2010.

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

References:

  1. Etzioni RD. Estimating health care costs related to cancer treatment from SEER-Medicare data. Medical Care 2002 Aug; 40 (8 Suppl): IV-104-17.
  2. “Ovarian Cancer” posted on the National Cancer Institute Website.
  3. Larsson SC.  Arch Intern Med. 2005;165:2683-2686.  Tea Consumption and Ovarian Cancer Risk in a Population-Based Cohort.
  4. Decarli A, Franceschi S, Ferraroni M, Gnagnarella P, Parpinel MT, La Vecchia C, Negri E, Salvini S, Falcini F, Giacosa A. Validation of a food-frequency questionnaire to assess dietary intakes in cancer studies in Italy. Results for specific nutrients. Ann Epidemiol 1996; 6: 110-8.
  5. Toriola AT.  Independent and joint effects of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and calcium on ovarian cancer risk: A prospective nested case-control study.  Eur J Cancer 2010 Jun 18. [Epub ahead of print].
  6. P. Koskela, T. Antilla and T. Bjørge et al., Chlamydia trachomatis infection as a risk factor for invasive cervical cancer, Int J Cancer 85 (2000), pp. 35–39