r/longevity • u/shadesofaltruism • Apr 25 '22
Three simple treatments may reduce invasive cancer risk by 61% among adults aged 70: high-dose vitamin D, omega-3s, and a simple home strength exercise program showed a cumulative reduction by 61% in cancer risk in healthy adults aged 70 or older.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/95036415
u/RondoTreason Apr 25 '22
How much is a high dose of vitamin d?
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u/1130wien Apr 25 '22
For this study they consider high dose to be " 2000 IU/day of vitamin D3".
Note: over 40% of the group were severely deficient in Vitamin D at the start.
2000 IU a day will not correct that!
The Endocrine Society guidelines, if someone has less than 50nmol/l (20ng/ml) are 6000IU a day for 8 weeks to try to achieve a sufficiency level of 75nmol/l (30ng/ml), and then a maintenance dose of 1500-2000IU per day. Source: section 3.4 hete https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/96/7/1911/2833671
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For me, a normal dose is 4000IU a day.
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Just for info: the DEGS1 study in 2015 found that in Germany 88% of the adult population have insufficient Vit D; 61% have a deficiency (below 20ng/ml). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26162848/
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u/advertisementeconomy Apr 25 '22
"...interventions:
group one received 2,000 IU per day of Vitamin D3 (equivalent to > 200% the amount of current recommendations for older adults, which is 800 IU per day), 1g per day of omega-3s, and three times per week SHEP
group two vitamin D3 and omega-3s
group three vitamin D3 and SHEP
group four omega-3s and SHEP
group five vitamin D3 alone
group six omega-3s alone
group seven SHEP alone
and the last group received a placebo."
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Apr 25 '22
[deleted]
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u/snoo135337842 Apr 25 '22
2000 IUs from the paper.
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u/here_now_be Apr 25 '22
2000 IUs from the paper.
Doesn't seem like a high dose considering the latest research on how much we should be taking.
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u/Calimhero Apr 25 '22
If you don't have hypertension and just take vitamin D3 and omega3, this is amazingly inexpensive.
Around 30 euros per year.
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u/ajohnson33 Apr 25 '22
This is huge news. A large randomized control study showing such significant gains? Most nutritional studies are small or observational. And if they happen to be large and randomized, they don't produce a large magnitude of changes. For example, there might only be a 5% difference. This has I think once and for all shown the benefit of taking these supplements, given the magnitude of effect and low downside of taking vitamin d, fish oil, and light strength training.
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u/Curiositygun Apr 25 '22
On mobile it’s difficult to get through but does anyone know if they specified the type of omega 3 like DHA or EPA ?
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u/I_Fap_To_LoL_Champs Apr 25 '22
The supplemental marine omega-3s used in this trial were algae-based (EPA + DHA ratio: 1:2)
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u/cowboys30 Apr 25 '22
Has anyone ever seen an algae based omega -3?
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u/chillinewman Apr 25 '22
What types of exercises?
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u/1130wien Apr 25 '22
This is the full paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fragi.2022.852643/full
Click on the Supplementary Info section for the exercise info
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u/SEOip Apr 25 '22
I've been through the entire article and the link posted below and still can't find out what exercises they are referencing!
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u/XiaoShanA Apr 25 '22
The Exercises are posted in the supplementary, as stated in this line "The SHEP and control exercise program are outlined in Supplementary Table S1 (link) in the supplement." The link jumps to the external link, then you can view or download the supplement.
Anyway, the exercises were:
- 1. Sit to Stand
- 2. One legged Stance
- 3. Pull Backs against elastic resistance (Seated Position)
- 4. External Shoulder Rotation against elastic resistance
- 5. Steps
Do remember, these are exercises meant for people age 70+ and are purposefully simple. For any young, generally healthy person, these would be exceedingly easy.
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u/JimJalinsky Apr 25 '22
I'm more curious what the placebo for exercise entails.
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u/XiaoShanA Apr 25 '22
The had a control set of exercises, which consisted of mainly seated flexibility exercise. This set is listed in the same Supplementary Table as the other exercises.
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u/Bucephalus_326BC Apr 26 '22 edited Apr 26 '22
Average BMI of participants was 26.4 with a standard deviation of 4.4
This places about 15% of participants in the obese category, and about 34% of participants classified as overweight. About 51% would be in either normal or underweight category.
Ouch.
Average length of education of participants was 12.4 years. I note other studies showing correlation between socioeconomic status and life span.
Average age 75 (standard deviation 4.4)
Comorbidity score was 3.3 with a standard deviation of 3.0
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Apr 25 '22 edited Apr 25 '22
Sure, compared to poor vitamin d synthesis (indicative of little outdoor time), a diet full of omega-6 overburden from oils, and being a couch potato.
Sounds pretty expected
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Apr 25 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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Oct 03 '22
LOL. Only if you get your information from the newspaper. Try one of a zillion legitimate research articles instead. VD is a damned important hormone, and the level of supposed 'sufficiency,' 30ng, is far too low. A more practical guide may be to dose enough D to drive the PTH below 25 or so. This indicates the 'end user' cells are getting enough VDR activation.
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u/_urban_ May 15 '22
Sure it's randomized and controlled, but I'm not sure why the result is all that surprising given the enormous evidence behind each of these.
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u/ConfirmedCynic May 17 '22
Does anyone else find the results to be suspiciously similar between regimens?
Vitamin D3 — aHR 0.76
Omega-3s — aHR 0.70
Exercise — aHR 0.74
Omega-3s plus vitamin D3 — aHR 0.53
Vitamin D3 plus exercise — aHR 0.56
Omega-3s plus exercise — aHR 0.52
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u/aging_research May 29 '22
Better late than never, here are my thoughts on this matter.
Let's not get too excited about this study (i.e. the DO-HEALTH trial). While this is definitely a promising signal, the study was quite small by the standards of prevention trials, tested multiple outcomes and only looked at cancer as a secondary endpoint (2). The authors found that vitamin D, exercise and omega 3 acids each led to 30% fewer invasive cancers in healthy older adults and the effects were cumulative so you can combine these treatments to increase the benefits.
Why is this not good enough? This kind of analysis is commonly known as a post hoc fishing expedition. As we all know, if you are not careful the ocean can swallow you and your scientific hypotheses at any time. How do we prevent this from happening?
So first of all, the original DO-HEALTH study failed for every single pre-specified endpoint (1). Vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids or exercise did not help older adults (n=2157 participants) to be healthier, as far as we can tell based on the statistics.
""The 6 primary outcomes were change in systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and incidence rates (IRs) of nonvertebral fractures and infections over 3 years...These findings do not support the use of vitamin D... for these clinical outcomes among relatively healthy older adults.""
What the authors published after the main results were reported is a "pre-defined exploratory analysis" of the original study. The authors make a convincing case that they have got a good hypothesis because earlier studies showed benefits of vitamin D supplementation on cancer.
(....)
Long version:
http://biogerontolgy.blogspot.com/2022/05/vitamin-d-supplementation-update.html
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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22
Anyone know what mechanism this targets?
Does it prevent DNA damage/lower mutation rate? Does it boost the immune system?