Melanoma and Vitamin D3

Overview

There has been a lot of evidence that suggests that vitamin D plays an important part in the prevention and fighting of melanoma. This may seem surprising since the main way people get vitamin D is through exposure to the sun, and sun exposure is something commonly know to cause skin cancer.

Vitamin D is good for preventing melanoma

The key distinction is between sun exposure and sun over-exposure. In other words, normal sun exposure has not been shown to have any negative effect on melanoma, and in fact, due to the positive effect of producing vitamin D, has actually been show to reduce the risk of melanoma⁽¹⁾. However, over-exposure (i.e. sunburning) has been shown to have a negative effect and is correlated to higher risk of developing melanoma.

Vitamin D3 may be very good at fighting melanoma

There have been many scientific studies done that show the D3 version of vitamin D can be very helpful for some in fighting melanoma. It has been show in some melanoma lines, to stop the melanoma from growing ⁽³⁾, ⁽⁴⁾, ⁽⁶⁾, ⁽⁷⁾. It has also been shown that other mechanisms help to kill melanoma cells⁽⁵⁾. Further, another study showed decreased levels of vitamin D3 are associated with increased risk of melanoma. Hence, while it is certainly not guaranteed to work, vitamin D3 should be seriously considered as something to take when fighting melanoma, or trying to prevent its recurrence.

Read more details about Vitamin D3.

(1) Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sept 14th

(2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19155143

--> Concludes that decreased levels of vitamin D3 are associated with increased risk of melanoma.

(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15225804
--> Some melanoma cell lines respond to vitamin D3 and some do not.

(4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10209963

--> D3 showed an anti-proliferation effect

(5) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9638332

--> Beyond stopping them from spreading, it does something else that fucks with it.

(6) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8769954

--> Another study showing that certain cell lines are affected

(7) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12174089

--> Another one