The relation between vitamin d and pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth reason of cancer death in the United States. The Occurrence of pancreatic cancer increases with age and is higher in women. In recent years the role of vitamin D incarcinogens has attracted more attention. Some obser vational studies have shown a protective relation between sufficient vitamin D status and lower risk of colon, prostate, breast, and ovarian cancers. Vitamin D and its analogues have potent antitumor effects in many tissues, such as pancreas. Some risk factors for pancreatic cancer are obesity, age that is liked with decreased vitamin D status. In this review we investigated the association between Vitamin D and pancreatic cancer. A literature search in different databases, including PubMed, scholar and Scopus was done for evaluating the relationbetween vitamin D and pancreatic cancer. Ecologic studies indicated that the mortality rate for colon, breast, and prostate cancer as well as pancreatic cancer is lower in areas with higher sunlight exposure. In two U.S. cohorts, higher consumption of vitamin D was linked with lower risks for pancreatic cancer. A pooled nested case-control study does not support the hypothesis that higher circulatingvitamin D concentrations decrease the risk of pancreatic cancer. Vitamin D and its analogues, have the ability to regulate, differentiation, cell growth, apoptosis and angiogenesis, so may be promising agents. There is some evidence that vitamin D can reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer but further research is also needed to determine the association between vitamin D and the risk of pancreatic cancer

Keywords:

Cancer Prevention , Lifestyle and Cancer , Nutrition and Cancer , Cancer Treatment and Management , Targeted Cancer Therapy