D*facts Bladder Cancer

D*facts Quick Learn Video Series Bladder Cancer

Transcription:
B: 198,000 cases of bladder cancer occur every year. Approximately 85,000 people die of it. This would not be necessary if we had serum levels of Vitamin D between the 40-60 ng/ml mark. Welcome to D*facts. I am Carole Baggerly, director of Grassroots Health and this is a publication of our project, the D*action project, which is aiming at solving the world's Vitamin D deficiency epidemic. Today we also have with us Dr. Cedric Garland, professor at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center here with us to talk about bladder cancer. He has just released a brand new paper on it, showing that we can prevent a sizable portion of it with Vitamin D. Dr. Garland, thank you for coming!

G: Well, thanks for having me, Carole.

B: Please tell me what the most significant finding is about this that you came upon in your paper.

G: Well the most important finding is that 40% of bladder cancer could be eliminated if we just maintained adequate levels of Vitamin D in the blood. The number you mentioned, 40-60 ng/ml, would eliminate a large proportion of this terrible disease.

B: You have mentioned in times past that most cancers are epithelial cell cancers. Is bladder cancer an epithelial cell cancer?

G: Yes, the cancer arises in the epithelium, or the lining of the bladder, just a tiny proportion of the total mass of the bladder, most of it is muscle, but the part that gets bladder cancer is the epithelium. And it arises because the epithelial cells are not bound together well enough with tight junctions. Tight junctions are structures between the cells that keep them in touch with each other and inhibit proliferation and prevent cancer. Vitamin D levels, adequately high, are able to keep the tight junctions intact and that prevents the crowding of cells, the use of natural selection by the population of cells and ultimately the cancer itself.

B: Wow! So part of the reason that we have the cancer is because the cells come apart?

G: Yes. It's the very first stage in a process called dynamite. The first stage is decoupling or the loss of the little junctions between the cells. When those junctions are lost the cells go into a program going back billions of years that causes them to proliferate. When they proliferate they crowd each other. When they crowd natural selection allows the selection of the fastest growing clones, the cells that grow the fastest and are most aggressive. And that's what constitutes cancer, and we can nip it in the bud with Vitamin D.

B: Wow. In terms of, with the bladder cancer, you've discovered a lot of relationships between cancer and different latitudes. Bladder cancer was yet another one. How much evidence did this add to the story you already have or how does this clinch the picture with cancer and Vitamin D for you?

G: Well this was a sight in which previous research had not been done in the laboratory and, there wasn't any reason to believe at the outset that there would be another cancer that would be sensitive to Vitamin D but it turned out that there was, that it was an epithelial cell cancer, that has the same pathogenesis and its providing another test of the Vitamin D theory.

B: And the question I always ask is, "ok, what do we do about it?"

G: Well the first thing is universal testing of everyone for Vitamin D level. It's done using a test called a 25-hydroxy Vitamin D test. We should all have this done each year. It's more important than most of the tests we actually get right now. That will allow us to maintain a level of 40-60 ng/ml which will prevent at least 40% of bladder cancer. With this disease you also need to not smoke because the remaining 60% is due to cigarette smoking. And it's not hard to get the test. Any doctor can order it or if you like you can order it yourself from grassrootshealth.net and the website has the means of signing up, joining a study and actually getting in to regular testing of the vitamin d level in your blood.

B: Thank you!

G: Sure

B: Thanks to all of you for listening in on our latest edition of D*facts to know that bladder cancer is yet one more cancer that can be largely prevented by adequate intake of Vitamin D. please log on to www.grassrootshealth.net to check on these and other releases of D*Facts and certainly to learn about our D*Action study. Thank you again for coming.

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  Bladder Cancer