Sunshine vitamin prevents colon cancer

Until recently, scientists believed that the role of vitamin D was limited to ensuring metabolic processes in bone tissue. But then its ability to reduce the risk of heart disease was discovered, and now its role in counteracting mutations of intestinal cells.

Colon cancer is one of the top five most common malignant tumors.
The mortality rate for this disease is also high, since it is often detected in late stages. However, the risk of developing this cancer can be significantly reduced by normalizing the level of vitamin D in the body - this will have considerable benefits for the heart.

American scientists from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute discovered a connection between vitamin D deficiency and the risk of developing colon tumors.
The study authors examined the medical records of 218 patients diagnosed with colon cancer and the medical data of 624 study participants who did not suffer from cancer.
All cancer patients were diagnosed after 2000.

The uniqueness of this scientific work is that scientists had information about the level of vitamin D in the blood of subjects who suffered from intestinal cancer back in the 90s of the twentieth century, that is, long before they developed the disease.

The researchers found that the risk of developing colon cancer was inversely correlated with the level of the vitamin - the higher its concentration in the subjects' blood, the less likely they were to develop this tumor.

The authors of the study believe that in this case, vitamin D stimulated the immune system - its components, phagocytes, began to more effectively destroy malignant body cells, including intestinal cancer cells.