What vitamin could reduce the risk of contracting a serious disease?

A recent study provides new certainties on 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 stated in the article on the Medical News Today website, the main conclusion that emerged from the work was this People who regularly took vitamin D supplements were less likely to get melanoma, a very common form of skin cancer, than those who did not take these types of vitamins.

For this study, 498 Finnish adults, 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 supplements mentioned: 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 “storage form” of vitamin D in the body.

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 may 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, said otherwise. For her, “It is almost impossible to believe that a single nutrient can have a statistically significant and clinically relevant impact on the development of a disease that requires so many different contributions.“.

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 produced naturally in the body, which could lead to the need for supplements“added medical oncologist Kim Margolin.

In this regard, it is important to clarify that 15 minutes a day of direct exposure, without sun protection, on a part of the body at the recommended times is sufficient for the synthesis of vitamin D.

Moreover, Margolin describes in detail the intake of certain foods as another way to obtain vitamin D. It also talks about the genetic predisposition to have high values.