Those Women Who Suffer From Breast Cancer May Suffer From Vitamin D Deficiency

Women who are suffering from breast cancer should be given high doses of vitamin D because most of them are likely to have low levels of vitamin D, which could contribute to decrease bone mass and increase the risk of fractures, according to some scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

There was a study done where 166 women were undergoing for breast cancer treatment, and nearly 70 percent had been found low levels of vitamin D in their blood. This was disclosed at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco. The result of the analysis was that women with late-stage disease and non-Caucasian women had even lower levels of Vitamin D.

"Vitamin D is essential to maintaining bone health, and women with breast cancer have accelerated bone loss due to the nature of hormone therapy and chemotherapy. It's important for women and their doctors to work together to boost their vitamin D intake," says Luke Peppone, a research assistant professor of radiation oncology. He is also a member of National Cancer Institute’s Community Clinical Oncology Program research base in Rochester.

Symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency are muscle pain, low energy and fatigue, weak bones/ fractures, symptoms of mood swings and depression, sleeping irregularities, these are common in women who are undergoing breast cancer treatment.

There are several ways through which you can get ample amount of vitamin D. They are:

• Sun: Sun can be the most natural source to get vitamin. It is an easy way to get the health vitamin D and it also come free of cost.

• Diet: You can get vitamin D from your daily diet. Food such as; salmon, tuna, egg yolks, beef liver, cheese etc is rich in vitamin D.

• Supplements: Other than these two, you can also get vitamin D from health supplement pills and capsules.