Here they go again …… (Vitamin D this time)
No one wants to be seen as a “conspiracy nut” or worse a cynic but perhaps we should all take a slightly more critical view of the latest news. Recently the headlines concerning health related issues have been either erroneous or maybe even the results of someone’s agenda. The latest headline that appears questionable was published by the Associated Press October 30,2007.
“Vitamin D May Not Reduce Cancer Deaths
WASHINGTON (AP) — A large new study found no sign that vitamin D lowers the overall risk of dying from cancer, injecting a note of caution to the latest vitamin craze. The exception: People with more vitamin D in their blood did have a significantly lower risk of death from colorectal cancer, supporting earlier findings.”
The study referenced here was first published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute this week. It has been fodder for many great health headlines of all the major news outlets. Unfortunately no one seems to have read the article. If you read the article you find that just the opposite was found by this study.
This study was a longitudinal prospective study in which the researchers looked at nearly 17000 people and whether or not they were diagnosed with cancer over the years between 1988 to 2003. One of the flaws in this study is that they assume that the initial serum level of Vitamin D will never change because they NEVER retested these people’s Vitamin D level. Whether or not these people become sun worshipers or began to live in a cave for 10 years. Or what if some of these people began taking Vitamin D. These are questions that were not asked.
While these are important questions the real meat of this study revealed that the folks with the highest level of Vitamin D had a 72% reduction of colorectal cancer. In case you missed that. A higher level of Vitamin D REDUCED COLORECTAL CANCER MORTALITY BY 72%. An inverse relationship was found between the Vitamin D level and colorectal cancer mortality.
Just to put this in perspective, an estimated 153,760 people will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer this year in America and estimated 52,180 Americans will die from this cancer this year. If this is reduced by 72% these numbers become 43,053 and 14,610. In 2003 numbers the estimated overall cost of colorectal cancer was $6.4 Billion dollars. If this was reduced by 72% the cost to a strained healthcare system would be$1.8 Billion instead. Now understand that these figures represent just a quick estimate but they do represent quite a potential reduction in human suffering and monetary expenses.
These findings did not merit a headline. Obviously Vitamin D does not help prevent cancer. (Please forgive my sarcasm. )
Maybe we should read the headlines somewhat more critically.
Link to Pub Med abstract of referenced study.
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