Vitamin D Boosts Survival Rate of Bowel Cancer Patients

Vitamin D from sunshine is known to boost survival rate in bowel cancer patients.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of death (by cancer) in the U.S. and 131,607 people in the country were diagnosed with it including 67,000 men and 63,907 women.  The risk of developing colorectal cancer increases with age and is greater in men. It begins in the large bowel.

Symptoms of bowel cancer includes: blood in stools, irregular bowel habits, diarrhoea or constipation and weight loss.

People can survive the odds of bowel cancer as researchers at the University of Edinburgh discovered that patients with high levels of vitamin D can reduce the risk of dying by 50 percent when compared to those with low levels of the vitamin.

This is the first study to correlate the total blood levels of vitamin D in bowel cancer patients after their diagnosis, which includes that produced after exposure to sunlight and that is gained from dietary sources, with the long term survival prospects.

In this study, researchers evaluated the blood samples retrieved from 1600 patients after surgery for bowel cancer. It was patients with stage 2 of the cancer who received the greatest benefit of vitamin D. At stage 2, the tumor is quite large but the cancer is not widespread.

The researchers noted that three quarter of the patients with highest level of vitamin D levels survived at the end of five years as compared to less than two thirds of those with lowest levels.  The results revealed that vitamin D was linked with an enhanced chance of cancer survival, although not much is known of the nature of this association.

Professor Malcolm Dunlop, of the Medical Research Council Human Genetics Unit at the University of Edinburgh, said: "Our findings are promising but it is important to note that this is an observational study. We need carefully designed randomized clinical trials before we can confirm whether taking vitamin D supplements offers any survival benefit for bowel cancer patients."