Results of major upcoming study on Vitamin D and Cancer reported (link and excerpt enclosed)

< take with usual grain of salt >

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...andHealth/home

"Vitamin D casts cancer prevention in new light"

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
April 28, 2007 at 1:20 AM EDT

Excerpt :

"In June, U.S. researchers will announce the first direct link between
cancer prevention and the sunshine vitamin. Their results are nothing short
of astounding.

A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the
vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with
those who didn't take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer
attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.

And in an era of pricey medical advances, the reduction seems even more
remarkable because it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement
costing pennies a day.

One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert
Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says vitamin D deficiency is
showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease
figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. "We don't
really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American
population," he said, "until we normalize vitamin D status."