Vitamin D + Calcium = Reduced Skin Cancer Risk

A recent study (1) is getting a lot of attention.  Any time significant risk of the big C is reduced, people want to know about it.

The headlines say that vitamin D and calcium supplements reduce risk of skin cancer in woman.  Researchers were  not able to discover why this occurs, only that this association was observed, but only under specific circumstances.

Woman who previously had nonmelanoma skin cancer expressed an approximate 57% percent decrease risk in developing melanoma when taking vitamin D and Calcium supplements.  Woman with no previous skin cancer showed no reduced risk of melanoma when taking vitamin D and Calcium supplements.

It was not certain whether it was vitamin D alone, the vitamin D + calcium combination, or calcium alone that caused the reduced risk.

The researchers said results should be interpreted with caution and that further investigation is warranted.

Another study looking at woman in Northern Italy found a week inverse association with malignant melanoma and vitamin D intake from diet. (2)

For information on melanoma and nonmelanoma skin Cancer, go to Canadian Cancer Society

(1) Calcium Plus Vitamin D Supplementation and the Ris... [J Clin Oncol. 2011] - PubMed result

(2) Inverse association between dietary vitamin d and ... [Nutr Cancer. 2011] - PubMed result