A recent study provides new insight into the role of vitamin D in cancer prevention.

The survey was conducted between the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital and published on the Melanoma Research website.

As reported by the Medical News Today site, the main conclusion of the work was this people who took vitamin D supplements regularly were less likely to get melanoma, a very common form of skin cancer, than those who did not take vitamin D supplements.

For this study, 498 adult Finnish men and women, aged between 21 and 79, were observed. This group was selected by a team of dermatologists due to their high risk of developing skin cancer, such as melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma or basal cell carcinoma.

Participants were divided into three groups based on their regularity in taking the aforementioned supplements: no use, occasional use, or regular use.

From there, they sought to determine whether this type of complex was related to higher blood levels of vitamin D, known as serum calcidiol or 25-hydroxy-vitamin D3, which is the “store form” of vitamin D in the brain.

Based on the findings, Dr. Arup K. Indra, a professor of pharmacy at Oregon State University who was not involved in the study, suggested that vitamin D could protect against oxidative stress and DNA damage, which are associated with cancer risk.

He also stated that this nutrient “may be involved in immune modulation.”

However, Dr. Kim Margolin, medical director of the Melanoma Program at Saint John’s Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, who was also not involved in the study, issued a statement to the contrary. For her, “It’s nearly impossible to believe that a single nutrient could have a statistically significant and clinically relevant impact on the development of a disease that requires so many different inputs.“.

How to Get Vitamin D

“Given that natural vitamin D is produced by the skin in response to sunlight, reducing UV exposure to prevent cancer reduces the amount of vitamin D naturally produced in the body, which could lead to the need for supplements,” added medical oncologist Kim Margolin.

On this point it should be noted that only 15 minutes a day of direct exposure, without sunscreen, in some part of the body at the recommended times is enough for the synthesis of vitamin D.

Also, Margolino details the intake of certain foods as another way to obtain vitamin D. It also discusses the genetic predisposition to have high values.