Vitamin D in Denmark.

[pjoshea13]

New study below.

It will be used by the naysayers, but ponder this:

"The study population of 217,244 individuals had a median vitamin D level of 46 nmol/L."

i.e. the median was 18 ng/mL.

Most papers I have seen give 20 ng/mL as the cutoff for deficiency. So more than half of the population was deficient.

One has to admire the audacity of Nordic researchers who continue to engage in vitamin D studies on populations where it is impossible to avoid deficiency in winter, except by supplementing (& many clearly don't).

The word "higher" is used 4 times in the Abstract, but don't cofuse it with "high" in this population.

-Patrick

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/306...

Int J Cancer. 2019 Jan 7. doi: 10.1002/ijc.32105. [Epub ahead of print]

Vitamin D levels and Cancer Incidence in 217.244 individuals from Primary Health Care in Denmark.

Vojdeman FJ1, Madsen CM2, Frederiksen K3, Durup D4, Olsen A3, Hansen L3, Heegaard AM4,5, Lind B6, Tjønneland A3,5, Jørgensen HL6,5, Schwarz P7,5.

Author information

Abstract

Vitamin D has been linked to cancer development in both pre-clinical and epidemiological studies. This study examines the association between serum levels of vitamin D and cancer incidence in the Capital Region of Denmark. Individuals who had vitamin D analyzed at The Copenhagen General Practitioners Laboratory between April 2004 and January 2010 were linked to Danish registries with end of follow-up date at Dec 31st 2014, excluding individuals with pre-existing cancer. Cox regression models adjusted for age in one-year intervals, sex, month of sampling, and Charlson Comorbidity Index were applied. The study population of 217,244 individuals had a median vitamin D level of 46 nmol/L (IQR 27-67 nmol/L). Non-melanoma skin cancer was the most frequent form of cancer, followed by breast-, lung-, and prostate cancers. No associations were found between increments of 10nmol/L vitamin D and incidence of breast, colorectal, urinary, ovary or corpus uteri cancer. However, higher levels of vitamin D were associated with higher incidence of non-melanoma (HR 1.09 [1.09-1.1]) and melanoma skin cancer (HR 1.1 [1.08-1.13]) as well as prostate (HR 1.05 [1.03-1.07]) and hematological cancers (HR 1.03 [1.01-1.06]), but with lower incidence of lung cancer (HR 0.95 [0.93-0.97]). In this study, vitamin D levels are not associated with the incidence of several major cancer types, but higher levels are significantly associated with a higher incidence of skin, prostate, and hematological cancers as well as a lower incidence of lung cancer. These results do not support an overall protective effect against cancer by vitamin D. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

KEYWORDS:

cancer incidence; primary health care; vitamin D levels

PMID: 30613979 DOI: 10.1002/ijc.32105

[p3d1]

I had to read the number of participants twice, 217,244 people. Nearly quarter of a million individuals.Could they not have achieved the same result with 1000?

Trying to get my head around the total waste of money and time to carry out such a large scale study. To achieve what?.

We need to get these scientists together and have a fierce conversation with them.

[pjoshea13 in reply to p3d1]

I'd be happy if Scandinavian vitamin D experts could get funding to do their studies in Mediterranean regions.

Incidentally, the Danish population is less than 6 million. They only had vitamin D blood test results for 217,244 people, otherwise it would have been a bigger study.

Why did they have those numbers? Presumably, for most of those numbers, doctors suspected deficiency. In other words, the population doesn't represent a random sampling.

Also incidentally, Nordic country data is very attractive to some U.S. researchers. Everyone is in the database, diseases, medications, cause of death & dates. But I can't see any of them clamoring to run a major vitamin D study on that data.

Since multiple sclerosis has been established as a vitamin D-related disease, it is interesting to see that Denmark has an incidence rate of 227 per 100,000 people, 50% higher than Germany (149). For males age 65 & over, the PCa death rates (2015) were 293.0 & 196.8 per 100,000 men, respectively - again, 50% higher in Denmark.

-Patrick

[j-o-h-n in reply to pjoshea13]

Yeah, but they do make great danish pastry... I lean towards the cheese ones myself...

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Wednesday 01/09/2019 2:08 PM EST

[pjoshea13 in reply to j-o-h-n]

Stolen from Austria. Technically Viennoiseries, except they aren't called that in Vienna.

-Patrick

[j-o-h-n in reply to pjoshea13]

Oh shit... now I'll have to ask for a Viennoiseries with my coffee, I think I'll just ask for a bagel...

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n Wednesday 01/09/2019 2:19 PM EST

[Beermaker in reply to pjoshea13]

Interesting data. I plan to continue my daily vitamin D pill for the foreseeable future. I totally agree that getting someone from say Italy or Israel to do a similar study for people that get lots of natural light. I live in the Florida Panhandle and should get a fair amount of sunlight.

Thanks again for posting this information.

[MJCA]

My GP had me taking 150,000 units of vitamin D for 10. I’m in this group - did not work for me.

[henukit]

Oh, don't we already know that retrospective horse is rather dead than alive? Anyways, you get points for finding one. ))) Thanks!