VITAMIN D AND PANCREATIC CANCER DOES VITAMIN D HELP PREVENT PANCREATIC CANCER AND A REPORT FROM HARVARD AND NORTHWESTERN

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With the stories of Pavarotti and Swayze, pancreatic cancer has been in the news. Recently I wrote about treatment at Johns Hopkins for pancreatic cancer. With the opera star Marilyn Horne getting surgery as well as a vaccine for pancreatic cancer. In an unrelated story researchers have been investigating the possible benefits of vitamin D in preventing medical problems, possibly even some forms of cancer. In fact the Canadian Cancer Society has recommended vitamin D. But it turns out that researchers at Harvard and Northwestern have looked at a possible role of vitamin D in prevention of pancreatic cancer.

Vitamin D vs pancreatic cancer and what is a cohort study

In 2006 Harvard and Northwestern scientists illuminated a possible benefit of vitamin D against pancreatic cancer in the journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention. The researchers wrote "We observed that a higher intake of vitamin D was associated with a decreased risk for pancreatic cancer in two large U.S. cohorts. (A cohort is a group of people who share a common characteristic or experience within a defined period (e.g., are born, leave school, lose their job, are exposed to a drug or a vaccine, etc.)...In this analysis of two large prospective cohort studies, we observed a reduced risk for pancreatic cancer with higher intake of vitamin D. Participants consuming 600 IU/d or more of vitamin D experienced a 41% lower risk for pancreatic cancer when compared with those consuming less than 150 IU/d".

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We cannot exclude the possibility that vitamin D may be acting as a surrogate for some other, as yet unknown, factor that is associated with the risk for pancreatic cancer. However, in our multivariable analyses, we controlled for factors previously associated with pancreatic cancer(such as cigarette smoking), as well as other potential confounders, including multivitamin supplement use and calcium and retinol intake. Adjusting for multivitamin supplement use strengthened the association between total vitamin D intake and the risk for pancreatic cancer, particularly at the highest levels of intake. We have previously reported a modest positive association between multivitamin supplement use and the risk of pancreatic cancer and this raised the possibility that some factor in multivitamin supplements other than vitamin D, potentially retinol, antagonizes a protective effect of vitamin D, or plays an independent role in increasing the risk for pancreatic cancer. Moreover, when excluding multivitamin supplement users, we continued to observe an inverse relation between vitamin D from food sources and the risk for pancreatic cancer".




"Two ongoing cohort studies provided data for our analyses: the Nurses' Health Study (NHS), and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). The NHS was initiated in 1976 when 121,701 U.S. female registered nurses ages 30 to 55 years responded to a mailed questionnaire. The HPFS began in 1986 when 51,529 U.S. male health professionals ages 40 to 75 years responded to a mailed questionnaire".




"To our knowledge, this is the first epidemiologic report of an association between vitamin D intake and the risk for pancreatic cancer...In concert with laboratory demonstrations of antitumor effects of vitamin D, our results point to a potential role for the vitamin D pathway in the prevention and pathogenesis of pancreatic cancer. Considering the paucity of epidemiologic data on this malignancy, additional study of vitamin D and pancreatic cancer is warranted".

Vitamin D Intake and the Risk for Pancreatic Cancer in Two Cohort Studies