Vitamin D and Racial Disparities for Pancreatic Cancer - Letter Available to Purchase

The recent article on racial disparities in pancreatic cancer incidence found that black Americans had an unexplained 42% increased risk of pancreatic cancer mortality rates than white Americans, and neither differences in smoking or obesity rates explained this disparity (1). Overlooked in this article was any discussion of the role that vitamin D could play in reducing the risk of pancreatic cancer. Several ecological studies have found that indices of solar UVB doses as proxies for vitamin D production are inversely correlated with pancreatic cancer mortality rates even after accounting for smoking (2). A cohort study also found that pancreatic cancer incidence was significantly inversely correlated with vitamin D intake: compared with participants in the lowest category of total vitamin D intake (<150 IU/d), pooled multivariate relative risks for pancreatic cancer were 0.78 (95% confidence interval, 0.59-1.01) for 150 to 299 IU/d and 0.59 (95% confidence...