VITAMIN D AND CANCER: It works, but way above the RDA
The news that high doses of vitamin D can halve the risk of developing some cancers may well have had a poor reception in Brussels. The EU bureaucrats are deciding on the potency of vitamins that will be freely available in shops throughout Europe - and the new cancer study shows that therapeutic levels need to be far higher than the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). The University of California research team has found that vitamin D3 - which is available as a supplement - has a protective effect only at levels of 1000 IUs (international units) a day. The UK government's recommended safe upper limit dose is just 400 IUs, whereas in the USA it's set at 2000 IUs. The study team researched studies that had been published between 1966 and 2004 on cancer and vitamin D, and concluded that thousands of lives could be saved if people had sufficient bodily stores of vitamin D. Scientists reckon that around one in 10 people in the West are deficient in the vitamin.
It is most readily available from the sun itself, but scientists are concerned that over-exposure can lead to skin cancer. Instead, they recommend that people get the vitamin from supplements and from food such as egg yolk, fish oil and liver.
The study highlights the divide between those who take supplements at the RDA levels, and the minority who take them at the far higher therapeutic levels. The study is a belated, but welcome, blow for the minority. Let's hope that the EU bureaucrats take heed.
(Source: American Journal of Public Health, published online, December 27, 2005)
