Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jan 1;33(1):37-47.
doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000001413.

Vitamin D Supplement Use and Risk of Breast Cancer by Race-Ethnicity

Katie M O'Brien  1 , Alexander P Keil  1   2 , Quaker E Harmon  1 , Chandra L Jackson  1   3 , Alexandra J White  1 , Mary V Díaz-Santana  4 , Jack A Taylor  1 , Dale P Sandler  1
Affiliations

Vitamin D Supplement Use and Risk of Breast Cancer by Race-Ethnicity

Katie M O'Brien et al. Epidemiology. .

Abstract

Background: Vitamin D has anticarcinogenic properties, but a relationship between vitamin D supplement use and breast cancer is not established. Few studies have accounted for changes in supplement use over time or evaluated racial-ethnic differences.

Methods: The Sister Study is a prospective cohort of 50,884 women with 35-74 years of age who had a sister with breast cancer, but no breast cancer themselves at enrollment (2003-2009). We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association between vitamin D supplement use and incident breast cancer (3,502 cases; median follow-up 10.5 years).

Results: Vitamin D supplement use was common, with 64% reporting ever use (at least once per month) in the year before enrollment. Considering supplement use over time, ever use of vitamin D supplements was not meaningfully associated with breast cancer (HR = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.88, 1.0), relative to never use. However, after adjusting for prior use, recent use of vitamin D supplements ≥1/month was inversely associated with breast cancer (HR = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.78, 1.0), relative to nonrecent use. The inverse association was stronger for ductal carcinoma in situ (HR = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.52, 0.87) than invasive breast cancer (HR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.72, 1.1, p-for-heterogeneity = 0.02). Supplement use was less common among African American/Black (56%) and non-Black Hispanic/Latina (50%) women than non-Hispanic White women (66%), but there was limited evidence of racial-ethnic differences in HRs (p-for-heterogeneity = 0.16 for ever use, P = 0.55 for recent).

Conclusions: Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that recent vitamin D use is inversely associated with breast cancer risk.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure.
Figure.. Stratum-specific hazard ratio estimates
Hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the associations between ever use of vitamin D supplements (left) and recent use of vitamin D supplements (right) and incident breast cancer by strata of covariates of interest. All variables are updated throughout follow-up, with the exception of geography-based ultraviolet (UV) exposure and family history of breast cancer. Heterogeneity p-values are for a Wald test of an interaction term(s) between supplement use and the covariate of interest. Abbreviations: BMI = body mass index; UV = ultraviolet; HRT = hormone replacement therapy
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Mccullough ML, Zoltick ES, Weinstein SJ, et al. Circulating Vitamin D and Colorectal Cancer Risk : An International Pooling Project of 17 Cohorts. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2019;111(2):158–169. doi:10.1093/jnci/djy087 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Schöttker B, Jorde R, Peasey A, et al. Vitamin D and mortality: meta-analysis of individual participant data from a large consortium of cohort studies from Europe and the United States. BMJ. 2014;348:g3656. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhang R, Li B, Gao X, et al. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and the risk of cardiovascular disease: dose–response meta-analysis of prospective studies. Am J Clin Nutr. 2017;105(4):810–819. doi:10.3945/ajcn.116.140392 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Chlebowski RT, Johnson KC, Kooperberg C, et al. Calcium plus vitamin D lementation and the risk of breast cancer. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2008;100(22):1581–1591. doi:10.1093/jnci/djn360 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Manson JE, Cook NR, Lee I-M, et al. Vitamin D Supplements and Prevention of Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease. N Engl J Med. 2018:NEJMoa1809944. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1809944 - DOI - PubMed

Publication types