Posted on 09/07/2022 2:26:20 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Vitamin D levels affect overall survival for melanoma (skin cancer) patients, a new study has shown.
Dermatology researchers discovered that those who were deficient in vitamin D (lower than 10ng/mL) following their melanoma diagnosis were twice as likely (hazard ratio 2.3) to have lower overall survival than those with vitamin D levels equal/greater than 10ng/mL.
The retrospective study analyzed a cohort of 264 patients with invasive melanoma from the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, to investigate whether vitamin D plays a protective role in melanoma survival.
The study investigated the differences in overall survival and melanoma-specific survival between groups using statistical analysis techniques.
The findings remained significant even when adjusting the model for age at diagnosis, sex, Breslow index (depth of the melanoma from the skin surface to the deepest point), and the season of the year, with a hazard ratio of 2.4 in the multivariate analysis.
In contrast with previous studies, our study showed that the basal characteristics at diagnosis of melanoma (age, sex, phototype of patients, location, histological subtype, Breslow index, ulceration and mitotic index of tumors) were not associated with differences in vitamin D levels. Furthermore, Vitamin D deficiency was not shown to impact melanoma-specific survival.
Lead researcher Dr. Inés Gracia-Darder commented "Although previous research has identified that normal levels of vitamin D play a protective role in melanoma survival, this study aimed to further understand this relationship. These findings suggest vitamin D has a significant impact on people with melanoma, showing in particular that vitamin D deficient patients have a lower overall survival."
Melanoma is a type of skin cancer that develops when melanocytes (the cells that give skin color) grow uncontrollably. In 2020 it was estimated that melanomas accounted for 4% of all new cancer diagnoses and 1.3 % of all cancer deaths in the EU-27.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
CM. Good to know, thanks for posting!
What a dilemma. Sunshine on the skin is the best supplier of vitamin D, but melanoma patients are supposed to avoid sun exposure?
That’s been known for decades.
How does this need a new study????
Very few people in Europe or the US get enough sun now because they are so paranoid about developing skin cancer that they wear +50 sunscreens everywhere, and their children do as well. That’s why you see so many pasty white children nowadays.
Sun exposure is a melanoma factor, btw, mostly in people who get little regular sun exposure but occasional bad sunburns...office workers who go to the beach and get seriously sun-burned a few times, for example.
Fishermen, outdoor workers, and people regularly exposed to high amounts of sun usually develop other forms of skin cancer. These can also be lethal, but aren’t if they are caught soon and freezed off.
So take Vit D supplements if you don’t get sun or wear a lot of sunscreen. They’re well absorbed, don’t upset your stomach, and are good for everything from skin to bones.
D is SO important to so many things ... it’s actually a pre-hormone, not a vitamin.
Don’t know my mom’s Vit D status when she had a small melanoma. Due to low levels of D being implicated with higher mortality rates with COVID, we now have her up to 70 ng/ml and I suspect my dad is about the same. The recommendation for avoiding COVID issues is a D level of 50 ng/ml or higher.
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Vitamin D for influenza
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4463890/
Last paragraph:
“A colleague of mine and I have introduced vitamin D at doses that have achieved greater than 100 nmol/L in most of our patients for the past number of years, and we now see very few patients in our clinics with the flu or influenzalike illness. In those patients who do have influenza, we have treated them with the vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a 1-time 50 000 IU dose of vitamin D3 or 10 000 IU 3 times daily for 2 to 3 days. The results are dramatic, with complete resolution of symptoms in 48 to 72 hours. One-time doses of vitamin D at this level have been used safely and have never been shown to be toxic.8 We urgently need a study of this intervention. The cost of vitamin D is about a penny for 1000 IU, so this treatment costs less than a dollar.”
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I take 10,000 iu/day for chronic urticaria (hives). It pretty much keeps them under control & rarely do I have to take any antihistamines (& then just half a pill of fenofexadine). There was a study on it - 400 vs 4000 iu. Both doses saw benefit, but the lower amount was only effective for 2 weeks. I was taking 5000, but doubled that when I had COVID - hives situation was improved even more, so I’ve left it at that dose.
Vit D = good stuff!
Good stuff indeed! And it was only “discovered” in the 1920s.
Bkmk
Question: what form of K is best to take in concert with D3? Thanks in advance.
I take one of two supplements that have K, K2-MK4, and K2-MK7.
One is a high dose of each and the other is a relatively low dose. Life Extension is the low dose which my wife takes and I occasionally take a Koncentrated K capsule, for a high dose.
Thank you!
I wonder if milk is a sufficient source for Vitamin D?
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