Hoodia Gordonii

Omaha, Neb. – A rigorous study has shown that vitamin D can help lower the risk of several types of cancer by 60 percent, making it a powerful cancer preventive.

Experts, however, are still undecided as to how much of vitamin D should people take, although they urge people to get more of it.

Cedric Garland, a prominent vitamin D researcher at the University of California-San Diego, views the findings as a breakthrough since there has been no other method identified in preventing cancer that has such a powerful impact.

Although the study is considered as a small study by Dr. Edward Giovannucci, a researcher of nutrition and cancer at the Harvard School of Public Health, the study still is relevant in extending several decades of research regarding cancer.

Based on earlier research, the skin makes vitamin D when exposed to the UV rays of the sun, an element that helps regulate cell growth in the body, a biological process that goes haywire in cancer. However, the study used D3, which is the same form of the vitamin and is a stand-alone dietary supplements.

1,179 women with an average age of 67 were used by the researchers at Creighton University in Omaha, wherein they were divided into three groups, wherein the first group of 446 got calcium and vitamin D3 supplements, the second group of 446 got calcium only, and the last 288 took dummy pills.

Based on the results, only 3 percent of the first group developed cancer, 4 percent from the second group, and 7 percent for the last group, with a total of 77 percent lower risk for the combo group.

Though experts focused on vitamin D as the agent responsible for lowering the risk of cancer, they still do not rule out the possible effect of calcium to the overall effect of vitamin D.

Although Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University Medical Center supports the raising of the recommended amount of the vitamin, Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society and Joan Lappe, the study’s lead researcher, still believes that keeping the recommended dosage is best, at least not until further study has been conducted in the effects of boosting vitamin dosage.

Filed under: Hoodia Gordonii Info