Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, the National Cancer Institute of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Aalborg University in Denmark, have found that vitamin D encourages the growth of a type of gut bacteria in mice which improves immunity to cancer.
A separate analysis of a cancer patient population also suggested that people with higher vitamin D levels were more likely to respond well to immune-based cancer treatments.
"Caetano Reis e Sousa, head of the Immunobiology Laboratory at the Crick, and senior author, said," What we've shown here came as a surprise-vitamin D can regulate the gut microbiome to favor a type of bacteria which gives mice better immunity to cancer.
"This could one day be important for cancer treatment in humans, but we don't know how and why vitamin D has this effect via the microbiome. More work is needed before we can conclusively say that correcting a vitamin D deficiency has benefits for cancer prevention or treatment."
We found that vitamin D helps gut bacteria to elicit cancer immunity improving the response to immunotherapy in mice.
"Research Information Manager at Cancer Research UK, Dr. Nisharnthi Duggan said,"We know that vitamin D deficiency can cause health problems there isn't enough evidence to link vitamin D levels to cancer risk.
"A bit of sunlight can help our bodies make vitamin D but you don't need to sunbathe to boost this process. Most people in the UK can make enough vitamin D by spending short periods of time in the summer sun. We can also get vitamin D from our diet and supplements. We know that staying safe in the sun can reduce the risk of cancer, so make sure to seek shade, cover up and apply sunscreen when the sun is strong."
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-vitamin-d-mouse-gut-bacteria.html
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