In these troubled COVID-19 days we are going through, it is a very popular approach to use vitamin D, which is mainly effective on calcium and phosphorus metabolism, with the hope of being protective against the epidemic due to its immunomodulatory and anti-oxidant properties.
The effect of vitamin D on urological diseases has also been included in many studies. It is unthinkable that prostate cancer, the most common urological tumor, was not included in these studies.
Although it is known that prostate cancer and related deaths are more common in Scandinavian countries where there is less sunlight than other countries, and prostate cancer is more common in Africans, the excess melanin pigment found in the skin of Africans reduces the synthesis of vitamin D by blocking UV rays. The results of the study, which was conducted with the largest number of patients so far, need to be interpreted very carefully.
In this study, which was designed as a sub-cohort arm of the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), a ‘U’ shaped relationship between prostate cancer and vitamin D was revealed. In other words, not only low vitamin D levels, but also excess levels of vitamin D have been found to be associated with prostate cancer and, interestingly, more aggressive prostate cancer. Especially when consuming this type of protective vitamins and nutrients, the most important point to be considered must be ‘BALANCE’, as in all areas of life.
1-Kristal, A.R., et al. Plasma vitamin D and prostate cancer risk: results from the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev, 2014. 23:1494. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24732629
2-Nyame, Y.A., et al. Associations Between Serum Vitamin D and Adverse Pathology in Men Undergoing Radical Prostatectomy. J Clin Oncol, 2016. 34: 1345.
3- European Association of Urology, Prostate Cancer Guide 2020
(https://uroweb.org/guideline/prostate-cancer)
