
Vitamin D slashes risk of cancers by 77 percent (2007) - MikeCapone
http://www.creighton.edu/publicrelations/newscenter/news/2007/june2007/june82007/vitamind_cancer_nr060807/index.php
======
thunk
Hi there. I'm TV's thunk. To stay healthy and happy, just follow these simple
rules:

1) To prevent cancer, go have some fun in the sun.

2) But to prevent skin cancer, stay out of the sun.

3) Avoid carbs and meat and regular produce.

4) And don't waste money on that organic stuff -- it's no better than normal!

5) You may want to stop wearing shoes, since they can mess up your feet.

6) Avoid alcohol, except for a couple heart-healthy drinks a day.

7) And most of all, don't stress out over this stuff too much -- it can cause
heart disease.

The more you know. [star, rainbow]

~~~
nreece

      3) Avoid carbs and meat and regular produce.
    

Meat is very low in carbs. In fact, meat (red and white) is high in protein,
essential amino acids, zinc, vitamin B12, selenium, phosphorus, niacin,
vitamin B6, iron and riboflavin. (Ref:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Nutritional_benefits_and_c...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meat#Nutritional_benefits_and_concerns))

~~~
dejb
And it there is substantial evidence that it (red meat) increases the risk of
cancer.

~~~
cwan
There's been quite a bit of controversy over some of these studies and how
they measure the level of consumption and whether what you describe as an
increase is just a "link"/correlation versus causation: e.g.
<http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.1210/news_detail.asp> \- I think the
"eat in moderation" idea applies here.

~~~
dejb
Check your sources

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Council_on_Science_and...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Council_on_Science_and_Health)

Some quotes

"ACSH frequently defends industry against claims that its products create
risks of injury, ill-health or death."

"The ACSH has been accused of being a corporate front group in the guise of a
neutral council on science."

~~~
cwan
Does that make their points any less valid? Would it not seem reasonable to
look at both sides of the issue - especially given the issues that they raise
with the studies (particularly given some of the oversimplifications in the
media after they were published)?

~~~
dejb
> Does that make their points any less valid?

If you are relying on them to provide a reasonable and unbiased summary of the
scientific consensus on an issue then yes. There is no reason to trust what
they are saying. They are likely to have cherry picked the evidence to support
their customer's views.

Of course the points 'could' be valid but because of the lack of trust you
would actually have to go to the source material to have any level of
confidence. Perhaps you should do this.

~~~
cwan
Alternatively, I could read their comments and read a few of the original
studies (or at least their summaries) and find the questions that they raise
are indeed valid - which you may choose to do as well. They did not provide a
consensus view but rather pointed out the limitations of the study which the
original authors also pointed out though others, like the conclusions you have
made, have cherry picked from.

------
jimmybot
Sorry guys, don't get excited yet. Bad, misleading headline.

What?

 _"Subjects were randomly assigned to take daily dosages of 1,400-1,500 mg
supplemental calcium, 1,400-1,500 mg supplemental calcium plus 1,100 IU of
vitamin D3, or placebos."_

It's not vitamin D. It may be vitamin D or it may be vitamin D + calcium. Why
didn't they have a group that was supplementing only vitamin D and not
calcium? I don't know, but since they didn't test that, there's no way to know
that it is just vitamin D.

Who?

 _"The four-year, randomized study followed 1,179 healthy, postmenopausal
women from rural eastern Nebraska."_

Given the age, male-female ratio on HN, it's not clear that vitamin D
supplementation would be beneficial to the average HN reader. Also, all the
women were 55 and older.

Besides that, as the article mentions, skin color and other genetic heritage
also matters. If you are a woman and Caucasian, this study is more likely to
apply to you; if you aren't, who knows?

In case someone considers going out and supplementing with both calcium and
vitamin D on account of this study, I want to point out that unnecessary
calcium supplementation can be detrimental, and it can contribute to things
like stress, poor sleep, and prostate cancer (if you have one).

~~~
timr
_"It's not vitamin D. It may be vitamin D or it may be vitamin D + calcium.
Why didn't they have a group that was supplementing only vitamin D and not
calcium? I don't know, but since they didn't test that, there's no way to know
that it is just vitamin D."_

The first rule of scientific criticism is: always read the paper.

The classic clinical manifestation of a Vitamin D deficiency is rickets -- the
direct consequence of a calcium deficiency. This is because vitamin D is a
known enhancer of calcium absorption from the intestine. All other benefits
are hypothetical. In light of this information, the researchers controlled for
the variability of dietary calcium across participants in the study; they
chose to supplement calcium for everyone up to the highest US RDA value.

Does that mean that it might be the combination of calcium + vitamin D that
conveys the greatest benefit? Well, yes, in fact, that turns out to be true.
But since it's trivially easy to supplement calcium _and_ vitamin D
simultaneously (and nearly every vitamin D supplement that you can buy
includes a calcium supplement), clinically speaking, it makes no difference.

But most importantly, the title of the original paper is _"Vitamin D and
calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial."_
([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17556697?ordinalpos=1&...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17556697?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)),
suggesting that the authors are well aware of the relationship between the
substances, and are actually _interested_ in the combined effect of calcium
and vitamin D. They wanted to know if calcium + vitamin D had a greater
cancer-reducing effect than calcium alone, and found that it did.

As for your other critiques, the authors state right there in the abstract of
the paper that the results are for postmenopausal women in Nebraska, and they
don't try to overgeneralize. But since the relationship between vitamin D and
calcium are the same for men and women, it's really not unreasonable to
suggest that the results could apply more generally -- even if you had to
adjust the nutrient levels to fit the age, sex and location of the patient.

~~~
jimmybot
Wha...? Wait a second. The title for the link submitted is: _Vitamin D_
slashes risk of cancers by 77 percent (2007)

If what you're saying is true, that calcium + vitamin D confers the greatest
benefit, then the link title is still wrong. But what in the study says that
calcium + vitamin D conveys the greatest benefit? (ie Vitamin D alone wouldn't
convey as great a benefit) It may be true, but it's not obvious from the
article that was linked, and it's still not obvious from the original paper
that you linked to.

The article and you are assuming that what is having the anti-cancer effect is
the calcium, and the vitamin D helps you absorb the calcium, thus enhancing
that effect.

First, I don't assume what you do, which is that supplementing calcium is
always a positive. Second, what if vitamin D has some action other than help
you absorb calcium. Even if I'm not an expert in this, I find it hard to
believe that medical researchers have completely precluded vitamin D from
having any action other than help your body absorb calcium, and if it alone
helped prevent cancer, it may be really nice to know, especially if you don't
want to be increasing your calcium.

I don't get the attitude. I was talking about the information was provided by
the article. There may very well be a study about men 20-40 years old, of
varying ethnic backgrounds, who take just vitamin D (no calcium) and it's
found to decrease cancer versus control, but _that's not the information
provided here by the article or the original study_.

Your point about actual vitamin D supplements on the market mostly coming with
calcium suffers from the same logical problem. The article headline (original
or on HN) should tell me what exactly is decreasing the cancer risk, not some
assumption about what consumers will end up buying and what they'll _likely_
also end up supplementing with _additionally_. If the conclusion had been
vitamin D alone decreases the risk of cancer, do you think there wouldn't be
manufacturers churning out pure vitamin D, without the calcium?

EDIT: Okay, parent has updated post. I appreciate that you softened your tone.
Sure, I know it says that they aren't sure of the generality of the study in
the article. I think it's worth pointing out because again, there's that
disconnect between the title and the content. Title says "TAKE VITAMIN D"
without qualification. Article says different.

Responding to your new point about the generality of the study--if the
requirements for men and women really are the same (I don't buy it), then why
study post-menopausal white women in Nebraska? I can see age for the cancer
risk, but why not men, and why not of different ethnicities? If you're going
to tell me that post-menopausal white women 55 and older are more likely to be
deficient in calcium and vitamin D, then well, maybe the effects are
exaggerated and other groups don't need the supplementation.

PS Computational biology is cool, I did programming work in a bio lab trying
to identify splicing sites back in undergrad.

~~~
calambrac
And now you've learned a valuable lesson, which is that titles given by a
third party to pop summaries of studies somehow (amazingly, I know) don't
invalidate or replace the information actually contained in the study. Not
being able to live life based on the information present in headlines is kind
of tragic, huh?

~~~
jimmybot
What the heck? I didn't misunderstand the study by only looking at the
headline. The full paper _confirms_ what I said in my comments.

My criticism of the study as possibly being of limited applicability (older,
white women) still stands whether you only looked at the summary article or
the original paper. That the PI agrees means that she knows her study is
flawed (or let's say limited).

Read the other comments; people are taking it as if it applies to them. Some
of the people voting this link up also may have thought something similar.

There was a suggestion made that it doesn't matter whether it's vitamin D by
itself or vitamin D + calcium because you could just take both. My criticism
was calcium isn't necessarily good, especially for men, because too much
calcium is associated with basically bad nerves and prostate cancer.

What about what I said is a misunderstanding of the study or "failure" to
lookup the original paper?

~~~
calambrac
I didn't say you misunderstood the study. I said you learned that headlines
can be misleading, which I assumed was new information to you given how much
of a whiny little rant you felt you needed to give us about this instance of
that fact.

------
drenei
I have a close friend who has brutal hangovers when he drinks, and he claims
(and I've seen this in practice) that since he started taking Vitamin D
supplements his hangovers are much reduced in severity - sometimes to the
point of being nonexistent. I'm not sure if its placebo or something else that
hasn't been taken into account. But if was interesting to notice.

Vitamin D is one of the supplements I take - not as a hangover cure, but
because I don't get enough sun.

~~~
miked
I wonder if his supplements also contain B vitamins. It's been known for a
long time that certain B vitamins will ameliorate hangovers. My understanding
is that alcoholic drink makers have been trying for years to supplement their
product with B vitamins but have been blocked by the FDA or the FTC,
apparently because they think getting rid of hangovers will make people drink
more. This info came from Pearson and Shaw's Life Extension book years ago.
The best link I could find is this: [http://www.ehow.com/how_4886290_prevent-
hangover-vitamin-b-c...](http://www.ehow.com/how_4886290_prevent-hangover-
vitamin-b-complex.html)

~~~
nazgulnarsil
WHAT THE FUCK. what's next? blocking lung cancer treatment because it
encourages people to smoke?

fuck the nanny state. jesus.

~~~
Herring
The nanny state doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to work most of the
time, benefits outweighing drawbacks.

~~~
MikeCapone
And who decides?

Exactly. It's always the (neo) puritans...

------
jonsen
For years I had a big poster on my wall showing diagrammatically the the main
complex of biochemical pathways of the human metabolism. Awesome and humbling
to contemplate. Daily it reminded me that cause and effect relations in this
system cannot generally be simple.

~~~
Retric
Where can I get a copy of that?

~~~
jonsen
I bought it at a campus bookstore. You may find one on line. See one here:

<http://www.expasy.ch/cgi-bin/show_thumbnails.pl>

------
StrawberryFrog
_Most Americans and others are not taking enough vitamin D, a fact that may
put them at significant risk for developing cancer_

As usual, the only thing that Vitamin supplements cure is vitamin deficiency.
If you don't have a deficiency, they won't do a blind bit of good, and may
even be harmful. <http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6399773.stm>

------
benatkin
It could also be said that a Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of
cancer.

~~~
jimmybot
Can it? What evidence is there that the placebo group or the calcium group
were vitamin D deficient? One group taking vitamin D beyond their normal daily
requirement does not mean the other groups were deficient.

------
tokenadult
As usual, check Peter Norvig's article about what to look for in reports on
research studies.

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

------
antirez
Well anyway I think a good and safe rule is: take a lot of sun, but avoid the
"bad hours" (11:30-16:00 range in Italy, more or less) where it's simply too
strong and will likely hurt.

------
rjurney
I'm sure every hacker here with a latte/cappucino habit has plenty enough
Vitamin D and Calcium in their diet to get these benefits.

~~~
ars
You mean from the milk? Milk doesn't have anywhere near as much as is
suspected to be necessary.

~~~
rjurney
My milk calcs show that about 7 servings of milk a day would be enough to hit
1000IU/day, enough to bring 50% of the population up to the recommended level.
So maybe milk alone isn't enough, but it certainly matters. Aren't
osteoporosis rates down owing to lattes? :)

------
luckyland
name three things that have risen in popularity or frequency in the past
thirty years:

a low fat diet, sunscreen advocacy, and autism rates.

pregnant women need vitamin d awareness more than any other population
segment.

[http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-
explains-...](http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/vit-D-explains-
autism.shtml)

~~~
jodrellblank
_name three things that have risen in popularity or frequency in the past
thirty years_

Rubik's Cubes, international flights and home computer repair accidents.

------
nazgulnarsil
if you see A and B together it can be because C is causing both of them, not
because A causes B or vice versa.

~~~
fallentimes
Can you please explain?

~~~
nazgulnarsil
i'm just restating post hoc ergo propter hoc.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_ergo_propter_hoc>

basically falsely attributing cause when this inference isn't warranted.

