Originally Posted by: Online Community MemberI've not heard of any study suggesting vitamin D is specifically helpful either to reduce the risk of prostate cancer, or to speed recovery after treatment.
However quite a lot of medical experts seem to think that for people in the UK sunlight levels mean natural vitamin D is fairly marginal particularly in winter. Given I wanted to optimise other aspects of my health when recovering from treatment I personally decided to take standard multivitamins (recommended daily input of Vit D, not a high dose) but no idea whether I would have been worse off without it.
Plenty of studies have found correlations between lack of Vitamin D and prostate cancer risk, but the precise correlations have been more difficult to pin down. At Tackle Prostate's 2019 conference, Professor Tim Oliver presented some of these, but the most compelling cases seem to be the lack of Vitamin D during puberty specifically being related to increased risk of prostate cancer in later life. Puberty is the time when the prostate grows, so it's not surprising if it's particularly susceptible to the body's environment during that time, but perhaps less so or not at all after puberty.
I have often thought it may be worth looking for environmental factors specifically only during puberty when the prostate is growing., This might find more lifestyle correlations that seem to be directly linked to prostate cancer risk in later life, whereas conflating this with whole life exposure dilutes any correlation.
I'm not aware that Vitamin D has any link with curing or reducing recurrence once you have prostate cancer. Obviously, it's important for calcium absorption which is important for those on LHRH/GnRH hormone therapy medications, to avoid osteoporosis. With Vitamin D being an anti-oxidant, it might actually be a bad idea to take it during radiotherapy whose aim is to generate free radicals, but I suspect that the radiotherapy is so powerful compared with Vitamin D's anti-oxidant properties, that any effect from the Vitamin D is insignificant.
Quite a lot of people are told to come off multivitamins containing B12, because it's thought to cause cancer if you have too much. It's important to have enough B12, but it should only be taken under medical supervision while your levels are monitored so you stop taking it when you're in the normal range.
Edited by member 11 Apr 2025 at 12:57
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