Vitamin D can reverse low-grade prostate cancer

New York, March 23, 2015: Taking vitamin D supplements could slow or even reverse the progression of less aggressive, or low-grade, prostate tumours without the need for surgery or radiation, new research has found. "We do not know yet whether vitamin D treats or prevents prostate cancer," said Bruce Hollis from the Medical University of South Carolina. "At the minimum, what it may do is keep lower-grade prostate cancers from going ballistic," Hollis noted. The findings were presented at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, in Denver, US. In cases of low-grade prostate cancer, many urologists do not treat the disease, but instead do what's called "active surveillance," Hollis explained. As a man must wait 60 days from the time of his biopsy before he can undergo a prostatectomy, so that inflammation from the biopsy can subside, Hollis wondered if giving these men vitamin D supplements during the 60-day waiting period would affect their prostate cancer. In a new randomised, controlled clinical trial, his team assigned 37 men undergoing elective prostatectomies either to a group that received 4,000 unit of vitamin D per day, or to a placebo group that did not receive vitamin D. The men's prostate glands were removed and examined 60 days later.