In fact, recent research has found that vitamin D, which your body produces through sun exposure can help prevent and treat colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer. This is significant because these cancers count for 35% of cancer cases and 20% of cancer deaths in the United States (1).
Dr. Cedric F. Garland of the University of California’s San Diego Moores Cancer Center is the epidemiologist who has connected the dots between Vitamin D deficiency and cancer (2).
Studies show that the vitamin fights cancer, by promoting cellular differentiation, preventing cancer cell growth, inducing apoptosis and preventing blood vessel formation within tumors (3).
The review, published in the Journal of Cancer, found that 4000 IU/d of vitamin D3 could inhibit cancer progression, as measured by the main biomarker 25-hydroxycholecalciferol [25(OH)D] (4).
Breast Cancer
Breast cancer studies found that adequate to high vitamin D serum levels could lower cancer mortality by 44% (5).
In fact, women with very low levels of vitamin D at diagnosis were 94% more likely to develop metastases than women with normal levels, and were 73% more likely to die.