Vitamin D seen to prevent ovarian cancer’s onset in disease models
Mice fed vitamin showed fewer cancer-like changes in fallopian tube cells
Vitamin D may help to prevent the development of ovarian cancers, according to new studies in mice and cell disease models.
“These data strongly support the hypothesis that vitamin D has merit for the [prevention] of ovarian cancer,” the researchers wrote in the study, “Vitamin D Significantly Inhibits Carcinogenesis in the Mogp-TAg Mouse Model of Fallopian Tube Ovarian Cancer,” which was published in Nutrients.
Epidemiological studies — those looking into diseases across populations — have suggested that the risk of ovarian cancer is higher among people who live farther from the equator. One potential explanation for this is that living farther north or south means less exposure to sunlight, which is used by the body to produce vitamin D.
Ovarian cancers increasingly seen as originating in the fallopian tubes
To explore this possibility, scientists in the U.S. conducted a series of tests in mice to see how vitamin D affects the growth of cancer-like cells in the fallopian tubes. While ovarian cancer is traditionally thought of as coming from the ovaries themselves, modern data suggest these cancers originate in the edges of the fallopian tubes that connect the ovaries to the uterus.
Researchers worked with mice that are engineered to be predisposed to developing ovarian cancers. Some mice were administered vitamin D in one of three ways: via a pump, as an injection into the abdomen, or as a supplement in feed.
To assess its effect on cancer-like growth, the team looked at the size of the end of the fallopian tubes — the excessive cell growth that typifies cancer generally leads these tubes to become bigger than normal.
After three weeks, all three methods of vitamin D administration led to smaller tubes, implying less cancerous growth. In longer experiments however, only vitamin D administered via pump or in feed led to smaller tubes. This implies that the method of administration may alter how vitamin D affects cells in the fallopian tubes, the researchers noted, highlighting an area for further studies.
Further analyses indicated that mice given vitamin D in feed were generally less likely to show cancer-like changes in fallopian tube cells, with reduced molecular markers of cancer cell growth and more signs of cell death in the fallopian tubes. Mice fed vitamin D, overall, also were less likely to develop invasive ovarian cancer.
“Our study is the first to show, in a valid animal model for ovarian cancer, that vitamin D inhibited fallopian tube/ovarian carcinogenesis [cancer development],” the researchers wrote.
Findings suggest vitamin D3 might ‘confer most robust benefit’
Additional tests using human fallopian tube cells yielded results broadly consistent with those seen in the mouse studies: Vitamin D-treated human cells tended to grow less and die more often. Since cancer cells by definition tend to grow excessively and be resistant to normal cell-death mechanisms, these findings support the idea that vitamin D could help in preventing ovarian cancer.
Although these data are promising for vitamin D as a potential cancer-preventing therapy, the researchers cautioned that these findings were done in lab models, and further work is needed to explore whether they might apply to people. Some clinical studies into the anti-cancer activity of vitamin D in humans have found negative results, the scientists noted, and they suggested this may be due to issues with study design.
Overall, “our data suggest that vitamin D has merit for further investigation as a chemopreventive for ovarian cancer,” the researchers concluded, adding that cholecalciferol — known as vitamin D3 as a dietary supplement — “appeared to confer the most robust benefit.”
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