Therapeutic effects of vitamin D and cancer: An overview

Abstract

Abstract Since vitamin D's discovery, strenuous efforts to investigate its physiological exploit and deficiency on human health were done. Our body synthesizes fat‐soluble vitamin D when get exposed to sunlight. In recent years, experimental data indicate that sunlight exposure and an adequate level of circulating vitamin D can reduce the incidence of cancer. Several in vitro and in vivo studies also suggest vitamin D as a potentially valuable supplement for cancer treatment and prevention. Nevertheless, there need to be adequate clinical studies performed to substantiate the suppressive ability of vitamin D concerning cancer incidence. Thus, understanding the cellular mechanisms of vitamin D can be advantageous for preventing several chronic diseases. Consequently, this review concentrates on different studies that have been conducted to characterize the outcome of vitamin D in reducing cancer incidence and its medication by cellular progression mechanism.

Keywords

• calcitriol
• cancer
• cholecalciferol
• single nucleotide polymorphism
• vitamin D