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1 Department of Public Health, Social and Preventive Medicine, Mannheim Medical Faculty, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; 2 Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology and Nuclear Medicine, and 3 Clinical Institute of Medical and Chemical Laboratory Diagnostics, Medical University of Graz; 4 Human Nutrition and Metabolism Research and Training Center, Institute of Molecular Biosciences, Karl Franzens University, Graz, Austria; 5 Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health Study Nonprofit LLC, Freiburg, Germany; 6 Department of Internal Medicine I, Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes, and Centre of Excellence Baden-Wuerttemberg "Metabolic Diseases" Ulm University, Ulm, Germany; and 7 Synlab Centre of Laboratory Diagnostics, Heidelberg, Germany
Requests for reprints: Stefan Pilz, Wassergasse 8, 8010 Graz, Austria. Phone: 43-650-9103667; Fax: 43-316-673216. E-mail: stefan.pilz{at}chello.at
Accumulating evidence suggests that vitamin D may protect against cancer, but results from epidemiologic studies are inconclusive so far, and other studies looking into the prospective association of total cancer mortality and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels, which are considered to be the best indicator of vitamin D status, are scarce. We measured 25(OH)D and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in 3,299 patients from the Ludwigshafen Risk and Cardiovascular Health study. The baseline examination was done between July 1997 and January 2000 and included a fasting blood sampling in the morning before coronary angiography. During a median follow-up period of 7.75 years, 95 patients died due to cancer. After adjustment for possible confounders, the Cox proportional hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) of the fourth 25(OH)D quartile was 0.45 (0.22-0.93) when compared with the first quartile and the hazard ratio per increase of 25 nmol/L in serum 25(OH)D concentrations was 0.66 (0.49-0.89). We found no association between serum 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D levels and fatal cancer. In summary, our data suggest that low levels of 25(OH)D are associated with increased risk of fatal cancer in patients referred to coronary angiography and that the maintenance of a sufficient vitamin D status might therefore be a promising approach for the prevention and/or treatment of cancer. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(5):1228–33)
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