Vitamin D Levels Predict Prostate Cancer

Low levels of vitamin D may predict an increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer. Because of this African American men may be at the greatest risk, due to naturally lower vitamin D levels, researchers suggest in a newly released study.

The study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, details how researchers found an association between vitamin D deficiency in men and a high prevalence of cases of aggressive prostate cancer, particularly among African Americans.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked a wide range of health problems in  the past. Just recently, researcher have even suggested that vitamin D deficiency may be a crucial factor in the eventual development of wide-spread pain conditions such as fibromyalgia.

Now, researchers have found evidence that suggests that vitamin D levels can actually help health professionals predict a man's risk of developing an aggressive prostate cancer.

According to the study, researchers involved 548 men between 40 and 79 years old. All these men had recently undergone an initial biopsy after early evidence of potential prostate cancer was found though examination. A total of 336 of these men were diagnosed with prostate cancer with the results of the biopsy; half of them were African American.

According to the study, researcher measured each participant's vitamin D levels by through blood tests. Following these tests, they determined that vitamin D levels in the African American participants were on-average much lower than European-American participants.

The research team was also able to determine that the participants with the lowest vitamin D levels among the participants (the bottom 25 percent) were about 3.66 times more likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer. Interestingly, the African American  portion of this bottom 25 percent were an estimated 4.22 time more likely to develop a stage T2b tumor, showing that African American men with vitamin D deficiency faced the highest risk, compared to the other participants with higher vitamin levels.

While Researchers only determined an association, and not a cause-and-effect relationship between prostate cancer risk and vitamin D levels, they were able to theorize why African American men face a greater risk. A human's main source of vitamin D, authors of the study write, is from the sun. African American men absorb the vitamin at slower rate compared to European Americans due to their darker-hued skin's natural resilience to sun exposure.

The study was published in Clinical Cancer Research on May 1.