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Bob
Vitamin D reduces cancer deaths per V... - Advanced Prostate...
Vitamin D reduces cancer deaths per VITAL trial
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Break60
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Thats good stuff --
" In an analysis that excluded the first 2 years of follow-up, we did see a signal for a reduction in cancer deaths that was statistically significant, a 25% reduction, as well as a non-significant 6% reduction in cancer incidence with vitamin D."
I take 10,000 D/u 5 days per week in winter months and 5,000 on days I'm not outside in the summer.
Yes it seems to debunk previous studies that showed no benefit. I’m waiting to see what TA thinks.
It's the same study - you are misreading it. Here's what Dr Manson actually says: "There was not a significant reduction [in cancer incidence] with either of the agents... For vitamin D, we saw no significant reduction in total cancer incidence...a statistically non-significant 17% reduction in cancer death."
What her study found was that, after 5.3 years of follow-up, there was:
• No difference in incidence any kind of cancer (including prostate, breast and colorectal cancers) between Vitamin D3 and Placebo.
• No difference in deaths from any kind of cancer
I don't want to rehash this same study yet again. Everything I had to say, I said here:
pcnrv.blogspot.com/2018/07/...
you are misreading it. Here's what Dr Manson actually says:
"However, we had planned to account for a latency period by doing some analyses that excluded early follow-up. In an analysis that excluded the first 2 years of follow-up, we did see a signal for a reduction in cancer deaths that was statistically significant, a 25% reduction, as well as a non-significant 6% reduction in cancer incidence with vitamin D."
I did not misread it - I don't think it's justifiable to eliminate most of the data in order to get a "signal" for a reduction. What do we know about the patient characteristics of the people who did not die in the first 2 years who were eliminated by this sleight of hand and are they still similar in both arms? More relevantly for us, did the death rate increase, decrease or remain the same for those with prostate cancer.
you are misreading it.
The doctors point was correct -- no one had cancer at the start of the trial - So, no one was likely to develop cancer in such a short time or die from it even if they did - So, to include the first 2 years skews the number ( even so there still was a 17% benefit) .
Thus the doctors explanation:
"However, we had planned to account for a latency period by doing some analyses that excluded early follow-up. In an analysis that excluded the first 2 years of follow-up, we did see a signal for a reduction in cancer deaths that was statistically significant, a 25% reduction, as well as a non-significant 6% reduction in cancer incidence with vitamin D."
One has to statistically justify the elimination of 2 of the 5 years of follow-up. In other words- are the patient characteristics still matched? She would have been on stronger ground with a ten year study. How many men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer will die of it within even ten years - whether or not they do anything (Vitamin D or otherwise) at all? The answer is close to none.
yes, as I said earlier, I would think the benefit would only get better the longer it goes.
Possibly. Or it may continue to show no benefit. None of us has a crystal ball.
you mean: As the doctor said --- 17% benefit even including the first 2 years -- and 25% benefit when adjusted.
Non-significant statistics mean they are not different from a zero difference. A number doesn't become significant just because you like it or finagle the charts. It is misleading to quote numbers as if they showed a difference, when plainly they do not.
you are misreading it. Here's what Dr Manson actually says:
The doctor said:
"However, we had planned to account for a latency period by doing some analyses that excluded early follow-up. In an analysis that excluded the first 2 years of follow-up, we did see a signal for a reduction in cancer deaths that was statistically significant, a 25% reduction, as well as a non-significant 6% reduction in cancer incidence with vitamin D."
I know that is hard to accept -- but the doctor said what she said and we can read.
If you were one of the 17% it would matter greatly to you.
TA
I searched vitamin D before posting this and found nada. Sorry I opened Pandora’s box which you slammed shut earlier.
Why do alleged well meaning doctors post misleading studies particularly on a vitamin which is cheap compared to a new high priced drug??
Bob
Per link:
"DR. MANSON: The study included nearly 26,000 US men and women. The men were age 50 and older and the women were 55 and older, with racial and ethnic diversity. As I mentioned, the participants were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline."
Perhaps, I'm reading it wrong, but understand this is for "getting" cancer, not study with having PCa.
George71• in reply to
I think the study was all type of cancer -- the end points were acquiring cancer and death from cancer. Apparently over the short period of just 5.3 years some got cancer and died..
I would think the benefit would only get better the longer it goes.
Break60• in reply to
It tested for both incidence of cancer and death from cancer.
There was no difference in the incidence of cancer but a 25% reduction in deaths from cancer. In other words D results in longer life even with cancer so it apparently reduces the lethality of cancer without regard to type of cancer.
I Take 2 d 3 -drops each morning when I rise. Cheap and easy .k-2 goes with d3.. some say nutrients are voodo. Narrow mindedness is abound..I’m a believer. Take care
The DOCTOR said:
"However, we had planned to account for a latency period by doing some analyses that excluded early follow-up. In an analysis that excluded the first 2 years of follow-up, we did see a signal for a reduction in cancer deaths that was statistically significant, a 25% reduction, as well as a non-significant 6% reduction in cancer incidence with vitamin D."
I know that it is hard to accept -- but the doctor said what she clearly said: we can read. "a reduction in cancer deaths that was statistically significant, a 25% reduction". Even when the 2 years were included there was a 17% reduction in cancer deaths.
I can't make it any clearer for you.
IMHO people with stage 4 PCa would be ill advised and foolish to not include D3 -- there is no down side and clearly the study shows a benefit --
Agree with you--D3 is essential for bone health as well.... I guess 17% and 25% are just numbers to some of us who are not faced with the reality of having advanced prostate cancer...Thanks for posting George71...
Fish
That reminds me of a Song.
"the wall" " we don't need no education" -- lol
I am taking Vitamin D but as my bone marrow is compromised and needing regular transfusions during Chemo, I wondering if it's a good thing for me to take as I may run a higher risk of Hypercalcemia
the doc i saw for a second opinion is starting me on vit c, and d3. plus hormone mappying which i was told should have had this done a long time ago and my ass-hole oncologist didn't suggest it or think about it. its to bad its not his life and mine
charlie
Sounds like you went to a VA doctor. All this you speak of I was to we don't do this in the VA. Slice and dice if you die that's Ok.
Nala,
You know I'm agnostic to anything and anyone here, can you provide some links to Dr Friedman's sources?
I've worked on many clinical trials, unfortunately they're driven (mostly) by politics over science, Principle Investigators' are analogous to prima donnas'.
Obviously, the high percentage of men in North America getting prostate cancer, for instance compared to Asia does shout out social+environmental evidences. Unfortunately, as a clinical research software developer, data is biased driven, similar to clinical trials inclusion and exclusion criteria man made BS.
Since moving to Boston, from Miami Beach, I've been taking vitamin D3, but not like your regimen discipline. Maybe, if still living in Miami Beach, perhaps not get PCa...who knows...
I hope one day here, we can have different perspectives but not belittle, debate is healthy, scientific evidence is human driven, AI and Machine Language are fancy, but they are depended by human sources.
I'm a tough guy, but live in anxiety and fear, just waiting around when and what my PCa cells does next...
One question on D3. What is the number of PCa deaths in Hawaii as compared to say up state NY. Tons of D3 in Hawaii and very little in NY. Just thinking out loud here.
Don't know that you can compare them. The people in Hawaii are singing and dancing on the beach, and the upstate New Yorkers are screaming through clenched teeth as their cars skid off roads during blizzards. Think you would have to factor in the stress levels.
Yes I agree, I live in Upstate NY. Leaving for Florida soon😁😎😎😎😎😎
In addition to DOCTOR Friedman noted by Nalakrats there is this from DOCTOR Hollis:
"Hollis wondered if giving these men vitamin D supplements during the 60-day waiting period [prior to surgery] would affect their prostate cancer. His previous research had shown that when men with low-grade prostate cancer took vitamin D supplements for a year, 55 percent of them showed decreased Gleason scores or even complete disappearance of their tumors compared to their biopsies a year before (J. Clin. Endocrinol. Metab., 2012, DOI: 10.1210/jc.2012-1451).
In a new randomized, controlled clinical trial, his team assigned 37 men undergoing elective prostatectomies either to a group that received 4,000 U of vitamin D per day, or to a placebo group that didn’t receive vitamin D. The men’s prostate glands were removed and examined 60 days later.
Preliminary results from this study indicate that many of the men who received vitamin D showed improvements in their prostate tumors, whereas the tumors in the placebo group either stayed the same or got worse. Also, vitamin D caused dramatic changes in the expression levels of many cell lipids and proteins, particularly those involved in inflammation. “Cancer is associated with inflammation, especially in the prostate gland,” says Hollis. “Vitamin D is really fighting this inflammation within the gland.”
The protein most strongly induced by vitamin D was one called growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15). Previous studies by other groups showed that GDF15 dials down inflammation, and many aggressive prostate cancers make little or no GDF15.
The new research suggests that vitamin D supplementation may improve low-grade prostate cancers by reducing inflammation, perhaps lessening the need for eventual surgery or radiation treatment. “We don’t know yet whether vitamin D treats or prevents prostate cancer,” says Hollis. “At the minimum, what it may do is keep lower-grade prostate cancers from going ballistic.”
Hollis notes that the dosage of vitamin D administered in the study — 4,000 U — is well below the 10,000–20,000 U that the human body can make from daily sun exposure. “We’re treating these guys with normal body levels of vitamin D,” he says. “We haven’t even moved into the pharmacological levels yet.”
The researchers acknowledge funding from Gateway for Cancer Research, the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health and South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research Institute.
The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 158,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio."
acs.org/content/acs/en/pres...
March 22, 2015
This post interested me as I was a participant in the VITAL study (since I'm West Coast I see everything several hours later than you East Coast). So to quote: "During the trial 793 cancers occurred among the 12,927 participants assigned to vitamin D, as compared to 824 cancers among the 12, 944 participants assigned to vitamin D placebo, a small but nonsignificant reduction (full disclosure - I was one of the 824 cancers in the placebo group). Supplemental vitamin D also did not reduce the occurrence of breast, prostate or colorectal cancers."
A couple of notes - the VITAL study used baseline healthy 50+ year old men and 55+ year old women and was checking for prevention of heart disease, cancer and stroke. I would be very cautious about relating these results too closely to prostate cancer - the net was swung much wider. Fun note: we sent in pictures of ourselves holding the study drug in exotic locations for the newsletter. My photos were on a camel in Mongolia and at Cape Horn.
Call me Charlie Brown. I heard vitamin D was good, so I started taking vitamin d. Then I heard vitamin D was bad. So I started taking vitamin D every other day. And then, I am sure it was Patrick (pjoshea13) told me taking vitamin D intermittently was worse than every day or not at all. So I just stabbed myself in the eye with a pen.
I consulted with a long-time Vitamin D research scientist. He told me that being fat-soluble, it didn't matter how often I took it. I could take 10,000 a day or 70,000 a week and get the same results. So I keep a bottle of 50,000 IU capsules handy, and when I run out of the 5,000 IU capsules, I take one of the 50,000 every 5 days until the next bottle of 5,000 IU capsules arrive.
From the article linked by the OP:
(W)e had planned to account for a latency period by doing some analyses that excluded early follow-up. In an analysis that excluded the first 2 years of follow-up, we did see a signal for a reduction in cancer deaths that was statistically significant, a 25% reduction, as well as a non-significant 6% reduction in cancer incidence with vitamin D. And why might there be a reduction in cancer death but not cancer incidence?
This has been found in previous randomized clinical trials, including meta-analyses of earlier trials. There’s some evidence from laboratory and clinical studies that shows that vitamin D might modify tumor biology, such that it makes cancers less invasive and less likely to metastasize. This could lead to a reduction in the likelihood of death from cancer within a 5.3-year period, but not affect the initiation of cancer, which is a very long-term process. (Bold emphasis added.)
That is consistent with my experience taking 10,000 IU per day. I'm 12 years in, still have high PSA, but my latest scan for distant mets was clean. So the D isn't curing the cancer, but it may be keeping it from spreading.
I test my D levels every year, around this time, when my sun exposure is lowest. For me, 10,000 IU per day puts my D levels between 90-100, just where I want them.
I take 10,000 IU of D in my daily chocolate chip ice cream (two scoops).
Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.
j-o-h-n Tuesday 02/19/2019 5:45 PM EST
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