Vitamin D Shrinks Fibroid Tumors in Rats
Treatment with vitamin D reduced the size of uterine fibroids in laboratory rats predisposed to developing the benign tumors, reported researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Uterine fibroids are the most common noncancerous tumors in women of childbearing age. Fibroids grow within and around the wall of the uterus. Fibroids are three to four times more common in African-American women than in white women. Moreover, African-American women are roughly ten times more likely to be deficient in vitamin D than white women. In previous research, the study authors found that vitamin D inhibited the growth of human fibroid cells in laboratory cultures.
“The study results provide a promising new lead in the search for a non-surgical treatment for fibroids that doesn’t affect fertility,” said Louis De Paolo, PhD, chief of the Reproductive Sciences Branch of the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the study.