Study conducted in New York revealed connection of high vitamin D levels to surviving breast cancer.
A new study suggests that for women diagnosed with breast cancer, having high vitamin D levels in the blood may be tied to better odds of surviving the disease.
The study was spearheaded by Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York.
“Overall, we found a 30 percent reduction of all-cause mortality associated with vitamin D levels at the time of diagnosis,” said the study’s lead author Song Yao.
In the said study, the researchers used data from an ongoing study of California women started in 2006. In the said study, the women were usually enrolled within two months of being diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. The average age of the participants was about 59. When they entered the study, they were evaluated and periodically afterward to discover the link.
When the study has started, the participants were split into three roughly equally-sized groups, having about 520 participants in each group. They were segregated into groups based on their blood levels of a marker for the vitamin.
Later, the researchers found low levels of Vitamin D among women with more advanced breast cancer. It was discovered that the lowest levels of the said vitamin were found in females who had not yet entered menopause, but they were diagnosed with triple-negative cancer, which is worse than other types of breast cancers.
The researchers has a follow-up for over an average of seven years. They found out that about 100 women with the lowest vitamin D levels died, compared to 76 women with the highest level of the said vitamin.
The researchers report in JAMA Oncology revealed that women with the highest vitamin D levels were 28 percent less likely to die of any cause during the study than those with the lowest vitamin D levels, after accounting for tumor characteristics and other factors.
The link between the disease and Vitamin D, according to the study, was stronger among premenopausal women. In this group of females, high levels of vitamin D were also tied to a better chance of not having breast cancer recur, and not dying from it.
Talking to Reuters Health, Yao said that it would take a randomized controlled trial, which is the gold-standard of medical research, to examine whether high vitamin D causes women with breast cancer to live longer.