About 12% of women in the U.S. will develop invasive breast cancer at some point in their life and experts project that some 40,000 women will die in 2011 from breast cancer.  The biomedical community has directed an intense research effort to identify risk factors and prevention strategies for breast and other forms of cancer.  During the first few months of 2011 there were numerous manuscripts published by the international research community that investigated the relationship between nutrition and breast cancer.  This research shows there is a strong association between some vitamins and the ability to prevent breast cancer.  In addition to prevention, there is also a strong association between nutrition and vitamin intake and the survival rates for those with cancer.

The latest evidence suggests that antioxidants like Vitamin A and D may contribute to breast cancer prevention.  However, other research suggests that multivitamins do not contribute to prevention.  The strongest evidence is related to intake and sustaining proper Vitamin D levels.  The following are excerpts from four different studies related to Vitamin D and breast cancer.

• “In the context of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level-cancer incidence relations, cancer rates could be reduced significantly in France if everyone obtained an additional 1,000 IU/day of vitamin D. Many other benefits of vitamin D exist as well.”

• “Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency were common among women with breast cancer and associated with reduced BMD in the spine.”

• “…these findings could warrant vitamin D supplementation for reducing breast cancer risk, particularly those with poor prognostic characteristics among premenopausal women.”

• “Vitamin D had a protective effect against breast cancer in premenopausal women of normal weight in subtropical Taiwan, especially an intake greater than 5 µg per day”