Could Vitamin D Supplementation be the New Replacement for Avastin?

Jan 07, 2011 - The FDA has said that the controversial drug Avastin should be phased out as a treatment for metastatic breast cancer. Recent studies show that its benefits are outweighed by dangerous side effects.

The announcement does not affect Avastin’s status as a drug for lung cancer, kidney cancer, colorectal cancer and brain cancer.

In 2008, the FDA granted Avastin accelerated approval for use to treat metastatic breast cancer. But studies have failed to show that patients getting Avastin lived longer than patients on standard chemotherapies.

According to CNN:

“Along with those disappointing findings, serious side effects became apparent in patients taking Avastin, including high blood pressure, internal bleeding, perforated internal organs, heart failure and heart attacks, and in some cases, even swelling of the brain.”

On the other hand, vitamin D shows positive inclination in killing breast cancer cells.

Sun exposure may be the single most effective means of reducing breast cancer, thanks to vitamin D, which forms in your body in reaction to sunlight. In a recent study, data collected over a decade from more than 67,000 women showed that women in a sunny climes with high vitamin D levels were at a significantly reduced risk of breast cancer!

Doctors have known that low levels of vitamin D are linked to certain kinds of cancers as well as to diabetes and asthma, but new research also shows that vitamin can kill human cancer cells.

JoEllen Welsh, a researcher with the State University of New York at Albany, has studied the effects of vitamin D for 25 years. Welsh said the vitamin has the same effect as a drug used for breast cancer treatment.

Some consistent facts that show the cohesion between vitamin D and breast cancer risk are :

Some studies have suggested a link between low vitamin levels and breast cancer risk and progression, but others have not. Researchers have found that increasing serum levels of vitamin D may improve the prognosis for breast cancer patients. Calcitriol, known to be the most active form of vitamin D, inhibits breast cancer cells, making abnormal cells act more like natural ones. Vitamin D is proven to prevent the formation of excessive blood vessel growth around the cancerous tumor, a process called anti-angiogenesis.

Researchers have found women with tumors receptive to vitamin D went longer without a disease recurrence than women with tumors without receptors for vitamin D. A study published in February 2009, has accomplished that calcitriol stimulates the production of a tumor suppressing protein that can inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells.

San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium conducted in Dec 2010, revealed that more than half of women with breast cancer have low vitamin D levels and researchers recommend that women with breast cancer should be tested for vitamin D levels and offered supplements, if necessary.

More research is on the way to prove optimistic results on vitamin D. But, for right now, vitamin D is not just for breast cancer, but for bone health, too. That’s especially important given the increasing use of aromatase inhibitors (used in breast cancer treatment) which carry an increased risk of bone fractures.

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has developed the recommended daily intakes of vitamin D (on the assumption that vitamin D3 is not being made in the skin through sun exposure). However, excessive vitamin D intake is toxic as it could lead calcinosis and hypercalcemia.

Sources:

CNN December 16, 2010


Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention December 2, 2010


Breast Cancer virtually “eradicated” with higher levels of vitamin D
 
Fight Cancer with Vitamin D - Video
 
Vitamin D and Cancer Prevention: Strengths and Limits of the Evidence
 
Cancer Mortality Prevention with Vitamin D – Dr Cedric Garland
 
Related articles:
 
Randomized Trial of Vitamin D Supplementation to prevent Seasonal Influenza A in Schoolchildren
 
Vitamin D better than vaccines at preventing flu, report claims


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