Prostate Cancer and Vitamin D

Prostate cancer is a cancer of older men, mostly over 50. Most have no symptoms and end up dieing of something other than the prostate cancer. Two thirds of the cases are slow growing and one third are aggressive cancers. The aggressive cancers tend to be genetically related. Prostate cancer is the number one cancer killer in non-smoking men. There was a recently published study done by Dr.Marshall and Dr.Gattini-celli done at the University of South Carolina on vitamin D and prostate cancer.

Marshall DT, et al. Vitamin D3 supplementation at 4,000 IU/day for one year results in a decrease of positive cores at repeat biopsy in subjects with low-risk prostate cancer under active surveillance - Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. 2012.

44 men were given 4,000 IU/day of vitamin D3 for one year. The men had prostate biopsies before and after the year of vitamin D treatment.

Of the 44 men they followed, 60% showed a decrease in the number of positive cores or a decrease in their Gleason scores, or both. Only 34% showed an increase in the number of positive cores or an increase in their Gleason scores. 6% were unchanged over the year. PSA levels did not go up over the year. The authors classified 60% of the men as “responders” to vitamin D and 40% as “non-responders.” So if 4,000 units of D gave a 60% response, imagine what 10,000 would do. Also, 10mg of lycopene has results similar to D. So just think of what 20mg of lycopene and 10,000 of D may do.