Thursday Sept 1, 2016 (foodconsumer.org) -- A report published in Case Reports in Pancreatic Cancer suggests that taking high dose vitamin D supplements may help stabilize pancreatic cancer even without use of conventional treatments.

Pancreatic cancer is linked to high mortality.  The disease is so dangerous that only about 7% of patients are expected to survive for more than five years after diagnosis.  That is why anything that can help fight the disease would be desired.

The report says a woman with pancreatic cancer errantly took a vitamin D supplement in a dose of 50,000 U daily and as a result, her serum vitamin D concentration reached at more than 150 mg/mL (This is according to the report.  The concentration seems to be impossibly high.  Could it be 150 ng/mL?).

And the patient did not experience any clinical symptoms or side effects associated with this high dose of vitamin D.   It is not clear how long the patient took the vitamin D supplement in this dose. Keep in mind that long-term intake of high doses of vitamin D can be risky even though moderate levels of vitamin D can be beneficial.

The surprise is that her pancreatic cancer was stable for eight months without conventional treatments.  The authors wondered if this high dose of vitamin D provided some protective effect against the disease in this case.

High doses of vitamin D are believed to render a therapeutic effect against a range of cancers.  For cancer patients, 70 to 100 ng/mL or 175 to 250 nmol/L of 25 hydroxy D is considered helpful.  For healthy people, 50 to 70 ng/mL is optimal while less than 50 ng/mL is deficient and greater than 100 ng/mL is excessive, according to Dr. Joe Mercola.

Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to 17 types of cancers including pancreatic cancer, according to Vitamin D Council.  The cancer risk can be drastically reduced by maintaining sufficient serum vitamin D levels.  

Note that many vitamin D experts are not happy with the current vitamin D recommendation and they believe that the current recommended daily intake is way too low.  As a fat soluble vitamin, vitamin D is actually fairly safe to use.   It is generally believed that 5,000 IU per day for a long term would not cause any side effect in adults.   Remember that exposure to the sun for 15 minutes at the hottest hours of the day can get a person up to 10,000 IU of vitamin D.  (David Liu)

Cannon Timothy L., Ford Joel, Hester Danubia, and Trump Donald L.. The Incidental Use of High-Dose Vitamin D3 in Pancreatic Cancer, Case Reports in Pancreatic Cancer. May 2016, 2(1): 32-35. doi:10.1089/crpc.2016.0003.