Taking Vitamin Could D Could Cut Cancer Risk

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Higher Vitamin D Intake Could Cut Cancer Risk

SUNDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- A new study says it takes far more vitamin D

than initially thought to dramatically cut the risk of several major diseases,

including breast cancer.

" We found that daily intakes of vitamin D by adults in the range of 4,000-8,000

IU are needed to maintain blood levels of vitamin D metabolites in the range

needed to reduce by about half the risk of several diseases -- breast cancer,

colon cancer, multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes, " study co-author Dr.

Cedric Garland, a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University

of California at San Diego, said in a university news release.

Garland admitted that he was surprised that the levels required were so much

higher than the 400 IU a day needed to vanquish rickets in the 20th century.

Vitamin D supplements often come in pills or capsules containing 1,000 or 2,000

international units. But 4,000 to 8,000 IU a day is still much lower than the

range considered safe by the National Academy of Science's Institute of

Medicine, the researchers noted.

The study -- which also involved the Creighton University School of Medicine in

Omaha -- was based on a survey of several thousand people who took supplements

ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 IU per day. The volunteers also underwent blood

tests to determine the levels of vitamin D metabolites circulating in their

blood.

Some studies suggest that only 10 percent of people in the United States have

the appropriate level of the vitamin D-related form in their blood to prevent

disease linked to a deficiency of the vitamin. These people tend to work

outdoors, where their vitamin D levels are boosted through sun exposure.

Last year, a National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee

announced that 4,000 IU a day of vitamin D appears safe for adults and kids aged

9 and up.

The IOM's recommended minimum daily level is 600 IU, however, and the Institute

noted there were preliminary signals that there might be some harms associated

with consuming high levels of vitamin D daily, even at amounts under the

recommended upper safe limit.

Garland and his colleagues suggested that 4,000 IU a day is a safe level.

" Now that the results of this study are in, it will become common for almost

every adult to take 4000 IU/day, " Garland predicted in the news release. " This

is comfortably under the 10,000 IU/day that the IOM Committee Report considers

as the lower limit of risk, and the benefits are substantial. "

The findings appear in the journal Anticancer Research.