The association between vitamin D deficiency and risk of cancer: A systematic review

Introduction: Vitamin D is known for its importance in calcium and phosphate homeostasis and is essentialfor bone mineralization. However, calcitriol or ۱,۲۵-dihydroxyvitamin D۳ is a multifunctional steroid hormonewith many additional skeletal effects and may modulate signaling pathways associated with cancer developmentand progression. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between vitamin D deficiency andcancer risk.Methods: Databases were found in International Medical Sciences, Web of Science, PubMed, Medline, Scopus,Index Copernicus, Embase, and Google Scholar with the following keywords: “vitamin D”, “vitamin Ddeficiency", "۱, ۲۵-dihydroxy-vitamin D۳", "calcitriol", and "cancer". Risk of bias was assessed by two externalobservers using the Cochrane checklist. After the survey, the data provided in ۲۳ documents were independentlyevaluated. Duplicate articles have been removed. After evaluating the full text of the remaining papers, ۱۳articles were accepted.Results: Studies have shown that vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of various types ofcancer. Several observational studies have shown that lower serum vitamin D levels are associated with higheroverall cancer mortality. However, the relationship between vitamin D levels and cancer risk is complex andvaries by cancer type. For example, higher vitamin D levels are consistently associated with a lower risk ofcolorectal cancer, although the opposite association has been suggested for prostate and possibly pancreaticcancer. Vitamin D has been shown to exert anticancer effects through a variety of mechanisms, includinginhibition of proliferation, induction of apoptotic and autophagic cell death, and suppression of angiogenesis.Furthermore, vitamin D has been shown to modulate the inflammatory state of the tumor microenvironment byinfluencing the immunological infiltration and proliferation of cancer stem cells.Conclusion: Although vitamin D deficiency does not directly cause cancer, it is associated with an increasedrisk of several types of cancer. Vitamin D plays an important role in the body's defense against cancer, andmaintaining adequate vitamin D levels can be an important strategy in cancer prevention and treatment

کلیدواژه ها:

vitamin D ، vitamin D deficiency ، ۱ ، ۲۵-dihydroxy-vitamin D۳ ، calcitriol ، and cancer