Doctors claim Cancer risk could be halved by high doses of vitamin D

According to doctors in the United Kingdom and the United States higher doses of vitamin D are needed to protect against breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes and other diseases.

Professor Cedric Garland of the University of California cancer centre, San Diego says that the daily intake of vitamin d ought to be between 4,000 and 8,000 international units (IUs) (100-200 micrograms) in order to protect against the aforementioned diseases. This may go some way towards explaining the appalling health record in countries with a lack of sunlight (the main source of vitamin d) such as Scotland.

People living a normal outdoor life in a relatively sunny climate exposing their face legs and arms every day, should have no trouble maintaining appropriate vitamin d levels. However changing weather patterns coupled with advice on sun screen use means that in a lot of cases these naturally produced vitamin d levels are not sufficient.  

Staff at the London Oncology Clinic in Harley Street are now proposing to measure vitamin D of all patients, correcting the level when necessary. Professor Angus Dalgleish, oncologist at St George’s Hospital, Tooting, who also works at the London Oncology Clinic, has found that 88 per cent of his melanoma patients have sub-optimal levels of vitamin D.

He says “I am now checking the vitamin D levels of all my patients and putting them on 4,000 IUs if they are low. I check the level again after two months and adjust the dose. It may be that some need much higher doses than this.”

Another US expert, Dr Robert Heaney of Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska, said: “Now is the time for virtually everyone to take more vitamin D to help prevent some major types of cancer, several other serious illnesses, and fractures.”