Is Vitamin D Preventive Against Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer is known as a major health problem and ranked as the third most common cancerall over the world. Vitamin D plays an important role not only in bone mineralization but also inprevention of cancer. It seems that both Vitamin D and its analogs , have powerful inhibitory effectson development and metastasis of colorectal cancer (CRC). Considering the synergetic effect ofvitamin D and calcium , both of them together are recommended in cancer prevention programmes.This study is done by searching electronic database (pubmed until 2016) ; we reviewed 12 relevantarticles for our aim . In this research we evaluated the role of vitamin D in prevention of cancerssuch as colorectal cancer and the mechanisms by which this happens. It is obtained that there is anassociation between the intake dose of some nutrients and minerals with lower risk of CRC . Some ofthe examples are like: fiber , milk , fruits ,soy beans, folate , calcium , vitamin D, etc.Also there aresome other nutrients that their levels are associated with higher risk of CRC.such as : preservedfood ,high sugar foods , cholesterol ,spicy foods, etc. Moderate elevation of 25(OH)vitamin Dconcentration is linked with observable decrease of CRC incidence.The fact behind this happening isthat 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (calcitriol) interferes with angiogenesis and acts like anantiproliferative agent in most of our tissues- like colon tissue- that growth of malignant cells isinhibitted by that. Some of the mechanisms by which vitamin D directly acts on colon epithelium are: adjusting the cell cycle and differentiation and also apoptosis. regulating the signaling andsynthesis of the cytokine and growth factor are included in these mechanisms as well. Diet isaffecting in CRC development . Vitamin D is potentially preventive against cancer incidence andrecurrence.