Vitamin D Could Prevent 30,000 Cancer Deaths Per Year in Germany Alone
Over 900 studies show anti-cancer activity of vitamin D across most cancer types, and randomized controlled trials demonstrate a ~13% reduction in cancer mortality.
Modern cancer policy is dominated by expensive drugs, marginal survival gains, and soaring end-of-life costs. Yet quietly, a low-cost and widely accessible intervention has been sitting in plain sight.
A peer-reviewed analysis published in Molecular Oncology examined what would happen if adults aged 50 and older received routine vitamin D supplementation at modest daily doses. The results are deeply inconvenient for a system built around high-cost treatment rather than prevention.
Using national mortality data and randomized controlled trial meta-analyses, researchers estimated that daily vitamin D supplementation could:
Prevent ~30,000 cancer deaths per year in Germany alone
Save ~322,000 life-years annually
Reduce overall cancer mortality by ~13%, consistent across multiple RCT meta-analyses
Lower total healthcare spending, even after accounting for the cost of supplementation
Annual supplementation costs (~$1.0 billion per year) were outweighed by reductions in end-of-life cancer care, producing net savings of ~$280 million annually.
For context, many modern oncology drugs cost tens of thousands of dollars per patient while extending survival by weeks or months. By contrast, vitamin D supplementation:
Costs ~$11–$55 per person per year
Demonstrates actual mortality reduction
Remains highly cost-effective even under worst-case assumptions
Even when researchers ignored all cancer-care cost savings, the cost per life-year saved was approximately $3,100 — far below standard cost-effectiveness thresholds used to justify new cancer drugs.
Yet despite widespread deficiency, routine vitamin D supplementation remains absent from most cancer-prevention strategies — while healthcare systems continue to pour resources into late-stage treatment with diminishing returns.
Cancers Vitamin D Has Shown Benefit Against
Beyond population-level mortality reductions, a large and growing body of mechanistic, clinical, and translational evidence shows vitamin D activity across multiple cancer types. A 2023 peer-reviewed synthesis of over 900 recent studies highlights consistent anti-cancer effects mediated through vitamin D receptor (VDR) signaling, immune modulation, and tumor microenvironment control.
.Vitamin D has demonstrated protective or therapeutic effects in:
Breast cancer (including triple-negative subtypes)
Prostate cancer
Colorectal cancer
Ovarian cancer
Glioblastoma (brain cancer)
Melanoma
Squamous cell carcinoma (skin and head & neck)
Head and neck cancers
Bladder cancer
Non-small cell lung cancer
Multiple myeloma
Osteosarcoma (bone cancer)
Across these cancers, vitamin D has been shown to:
Suppress tumor growth and proliferation
Induce apoptosis and ferroptosis
Inhibit metastasis and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT)
Improve response to chemotherapy and immunotherapy
Reduce treatment resistance
Improve survival in deficient patients
Importantly, low vitamin D status is repeatedly associated with worse prognosis, more aggressive disease, and reduced survival — while adequate levels or supplementation are linked to improved outcomes.
Some of the most powerful cancer-prevention tools are neither novel nor profitable.
Vitamin D is inexpensive. It is biologically active across immune, inflammatory, and cellular regulatory pathways. And according to randomized trial evidence, it saves lives — at scale.
The only real question left is why public health policy continues to ignore it.
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
www.mcculloughfnd.org
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Recommended dosage? Most of us have been loading up on vitamin D since before and of course during Covid. I think the typical medical ranges recommended are low. What do you say?
I take 5000 IU’s daily with vitamin K and my blood value stays around 65 to 70 NG’s. I do spend my winters in Arizona, which means I don’t have to boost my vitamin D during the winter time if you are in the northern climate.. the key is to have your blood value of vitamin D measured. It can be done at www.grassrootshealth.net via mail order.! Vitamin D is responsible for managing 3000 gene expressions and this is ignored by mainstream medicine because if we boosted our vitamin D blood value for all adults to over 50 ng’s prescription drug sales would drop as well as physicians visits!