The Sun a potent weapon against cancer?

Ann Epidemiol. 2009 Feb;19(2):79-83.
A brief history of vitamin d and cancer prevention.
Mohr SB.

Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of
California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0631.

PURPOSE: To review the history of vitamin D and its use in cancer
prevention. METHODS: The literature on published studies of vitamin D
and its role in human health was reviewed and summarized. RESULTS: The
modern history of vitamin D began in the mid-1800s, when it was
noticed that city children were more likely to have rickets than rural
children. Half a century later, Palm reported that children raised in
sunny climates virtually never developed rickets. McCollum isolated
vitamin D, and Windaus its precursors, receiving the Nobel Prize.
Other scientists later observed that people with skin cancer had lower
prevalence of nonskin cancers, and that lower overall mortality rates
from all internal cancers combined existed in sunnier areas. These
observations went largely unnoticed, and the field stagnated until
1970, when maps were created of cancer mortality rates. Through study
of these maps, Cedric and Frank Garland of Johns Hopkins University
reported a strong latitudinal gradient for colon cancer mortality
rates in 1980, and hypothesized that higher levels of vitamin D
compounds in the serum of people in the south were responsible, and
that calcium intake also would reduce incidence. Edward Gorham and
colleagues carried out cohort and nested studies, including the first
study that found an association of a serum vitamin D compound with
reduced cancer risk. William B. Grant then carried out numerous
ecologic studies that extended the vitamin D-cancer theory to other
cancers. CONCLUSIONS: The history of the role of vitamin D in human
health is rich and much of that history is yet to be written not only
by scientists, but by policy makers with the vision and leadership
necessary to bridge the gap between research and policy.
.

Relevant Pages