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.

by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

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.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

www.mcculloughfnd.org