Increasing vitamin D intake could help women prevent breast cancer, researchers will demonstrate today, as they present results from the first study to investigate the vitamin’s role in breast tissue. Previously it was thought that the active form of vitamin D, calcitriol, which is a potent anti-cancer agent, was only made in the kidney. Scientists from the University of Birmingham and St George’s Hospital, London have discovered that breast tissue also contains the enzyme that activates vitamin D, and levels of this enzyme are increased in breast tumours.
