Vitamin D and Cancer Prevention

Vitamin D and its potential role in the prevention of cancer have received widespread attention in recent years. A broad range of potential vitamin D-related mechanisms affecting carcinogenesis have been identified. Epidemiology now provides evidence for a cancer protective role of elevated levels of serum vitamin D, particularly for colorectal cancer, and less clearly for breast cancer, while for many other cancers, including cancer of the prostate, no associations have been demonstrated. There continues to be a gap between results from observational trials assessing vitamin D status and those from randomized trials of vitamin D supplementation that cannot be resolved easily. However, whether new randomized trials on vitamin D and cancer development should be conducted in the future remains debatable. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.