Information: Vitamin D may Fight Cancers

The Buffalo News for Buffalo, New York has reported a study on how manufacturing Vitamin D may fight many types of cancers. From the article:

Research suggests vitamin D helps regulate cell growth and differentiation, the process that determines what a cell becomes. This is important in cancer. Cells should change normally, such as the way skin cells form throughout life, and not proliferate wildly to produce a malignant tumor.

As such, vitamin D is seen both as a protectant against cancer and as a potential treatment.

“Vitamin D may inhibit cells from growing and dividing and may kill tumor cells in some cases. It may also cause cancer cells to change into more mature, harmless cells,” said Dr. Candace Johnson, senior vice president for translational research at Roswell Park.

In recent years, the cancer center has put together a large, well funded vitamin D research team.

The researchers have demonstrated in laboratory tests that several forms of vitamin D control cells in ways that can prevent cancer and regulate proteins that affect tumor growth.

The institute also recently started a clinical trial of high-dose vitamin D replacement in individuals with high risk of lung cancer, and other scientists there are looking at boosting the effect of chemotherapy by adding vitamin D.

Read the full article here.

New Evidence: Sun Exposure Prevents Cancer

From Mercola.com and Globe and Mail.com:

An American study scheduled for a June release compared the health of some 1,200 female patients, some of whom took a vitamin D supplement while others didn't.

The number of patients who reduced their risk of cancer by taking a vitamin D supplement -- 60 percent -- was so unexpectedly high that some initially believed it to be a typographical error.

This study, and many similar ones, may force conventional medicine to re-evaluate its vitamin D recommendations. A deficiency in vitamin D figures into many diseases in addition to cancer. One researcher pointed out, "We don't really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population, until we normalize vitamin D status."

Globe and Mail.com April 28, 2007

My Comment:
This has come out before I could present my argument on how Naturism is beneficial to the human body this Monday. I was going to argue that the Sun is actually beneficient for our bodies as our bodies use UV rays as a catalyst to produce Calcipherol, otherwise known as Vitamin D. Doctor Mercola, a doctor who is crusading for truth, has actually beaten me too it. I'd be a voice a among many to saying how naturism is good for the body and the psyche.

And I'm still going to do it this Monday. I'll have the weight of the medical profession behind me as studies have been published in the Journal of the American Assocation of Surgeons as well as Globe and Mail. Doctor Mercola said that sunlight exposure -- i.e. sunbathing -- can reduce cancer risk by 50 percent. While UCAN and other Cancer Prevention networks try to turn us into molemen, I'm happy that Doctor Mercola is telling the truth about sunlight exposure.