- Mice Fed Vitamin D Had Increased Immune Resistance to Transplanted Cancers
- A nutrient triggers a process in the intestine that produces cancer-resistant bacteria
- READ MORE: Vitamin D ‘could reduce your chances of having a heart attack by a fifth’
A crucial nutrient found in fatty fish has been shown in the laboratory to provide some level of immunity against cancer.
Mice fed a diet rich in vitamin D had stronger immune resistance to experimentally transplanted cancers and better responses to immunotherapy treatment compared to mice that did not receive as much vitamin D.
Scientists discovered that the nutrient triggers a process in the intestine produced by the bacteria Bacteroides fragilis, which they say gave the mice the necessary boost in immunity.
The body synthesizes vitamin D from sunlight and some foods, including fatty fish, egg yolks, and some dairy products.
It can be difficult to get the necessary amount of sunlight in the winter months or in areas closer to the poles.
It’s not exactly clear why the bacteria appear to have immune-boosting powers, but the study sheds light on the promise of new insights and therapies for cancers that work on the gut microbiome.
Mice fed vitamin D had greater immune resistance to experimentally transplanted cancers
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US, and Aalborg University in Denmark revealed last week that feeding mice a diet packed with of vitamin D responded better to cancer immunotherapy. and better resistance to tumors.
Vitamin D acted on the cells lining the intestine, changing the types of bacteria that live there and allowing Bacteroides fragilis to thrive.
Caetano Reis e Sousa, director of the Crick’s Immunobiology Laboratory and lead author, said: “What we have shown here was a surprise: vitamin D can regulate the gut microbiome to favor a type of bacteria that gives mice better immunity. against cancer.
“This could one day be important for cancer treatment in humans, but we don’t know how or why vitamin D has this effect through the microbiome. More work is needed before we can conclusively say that correcting a vitamin D deficiency has benefits for cancer prevention or treatment.’
The NIH recommends keeping vitamin D levels above 50 nanomoles per liter, which is recommended for bone health, although people can’t know their exact level without a blood test.
Barely 42 percent of Americans are deficient in vitamin D. Signs of consuming too little of the vitamin include fatigue, bone pain or discomfort, depression or feelings of sadness, hair loss, muscle weakness, loss of appetite, and a weak immune system.
It is recommended to expose yourself to the sun for five to 30 minutes a day without sunscreen, as an SPF ≤8 can block the body’s ability to absorb UVB rays to effectively produce vitamin D.
Exploring new treatment avenues could help scientists make progress against some of the most aggressive cancers, including gastrointestinal cancers whose growth has been linked to the gut microbiome.
To better examine the link between vitamin D and cancer prevention, researchers analyzed a data set containing patient data from 1.5 million people in Denmark, which discovered a link between lower levels of exposure to the vitamin D and a higher incidence of cancers.
Evangelos Giampazolias, cancer surveillance expert at Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute and lead author of the study, said: “A key question we are currently trying to answer is how exactly vitamin D supports a ‘good’ microbiome.
“If we can answer this question, we could discover new ways in which the microbiome influences the immune system, which could offer interesting possibilities for preventing or treating cancer.”
Vitamin D has also been shown to positively influence other aspects of people’s health, including heart attack prevention, diabetes maintenance, and dementia prevention.
