I’ve had the honor of taking care of my good friend the past week or so who was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago. She recently just had the surgery and is recovering wonderfully. It has been known for a while now that Vitamin D is important for overall good health and to have strong and healthy bones. Vitamin D also plays an important role in making sure our heart, lungs, muscles and brain work efficiently and that the body can properly defend itself from any type of illness.
Recently, its anti-cancer effects have been discovered and are being studied for a deeper understanding. In fact, a recent study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment found that vitamin D deficiency was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer among Asian women. “Cancer is defined as a disease caused by uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body. Researchers have theorized that vitamin D plays a role in cancer through its ability to regulate cell growth.”
Scientific literature has supported the beneficial role of vitamin D in cancer, however, further research is needed to clarify the role of vitamin D in breast cancer specifically. Researchers recently conducted a large study with Korean women, and found that vitamin D deficient women had 27% increased odds of having breast cancer than women with sufficient vitamin D levels. This is a great start so far!
The research concludes:
“Given the growing burden of breast cancer in Asia and dearth of studies examining the association between vitamin D and breast cancer risk in Asian women thus far, this study provides a meaningful evidence for potential preventive effect of vitamin D on breast cancer for this particular population.”
Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels
Vitamin D is different from other vitamins, in the sense that it can be made by the human body when the skin is exposed to sunlight (UVB rays, to be more accurate). Other vitamins need to be absorbed from food, as the body can’t make them. The other aspect of Vitamin D that makes it unique, is that whether we get it from sunlight or Vitamin D and Breast Cancer from supplements, it has to be changed by the body a number of times before it can be used, turning it into a hormone.
You can come into any of our Soleil Tans locations for a UV tanning session to help your body make its own Vitamin D. The UV light produced by a tanning bed is just like the one from summer sunlight: about 95% UVA, and 5% UVB