Future is brighter for prostate cancer sufferers after study finds that sunshine could stop tumour growth

·        Vitamin D can help to block chemical known to encourage tumour growth 

·        Study used computer programme to analyse prostate cell samples

·        Researchers say findings could have implications for many other cancers

Sunshine could be key to stopping prostate cancer growing, a study has found.

Scientists found Vitamin D, which is produced when the skin is exposed to sunlight, boosted a gene which can block a chemical known to encourage tumour growth.

Vitamin D increases the effectiveness of the gene GDF-15, which researchers at the University of Colorado, in Denver, found suppressed inflammation in cancerous prostate tissue.

Inflammation is a driving factor behind the growth of tumours in several cancers including prostate, gastric and colon.

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Scientists have found Vitamin D - produced when the skin is exposed to sunlight - boosts a gene that blocks tumour growth

The study used a sophisticated computer algorithm to analyse samples of prostate cells and compare the prevalence of the GDF-15 protein and inflammatory cells.

The research, published in the journal Prostate, found the GDF-15 gene blocked NFkB – a protein complex which triggers inflammation and promotes the formation and growth of tumours.

Although scientists already knew that NFkB could worsen cancer, they had not come up with a solution to stop it.

This latest research suggests that using Vitamin D to stimulate the GDF-15 gene could be a possible future technique for controlling prostate cancer.

James Lambert, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, said: ‘When you take Vitamin D and put it on prostate cancer cells, it inhibits their growth. But it hasn’t been proven as an anti-cancer agent. We wanted to understand what genes Vitamin D is turning on or off in prostate cancer to offer new targets.

‘Inflammation is thought to drive many cancers. Therefore, GDF-15 may be a good thing in keeping prostate tissue healthy – it suppresses inflammation, which is a bad actor potentially driving prostate cancer.

‘There’s been a lot of work on inhibiting NFkB. Now from this starting point of Vitamin D in prostate cancer, we’ve come a long way toward understanding how we might use GDF-15 to target NFkB, which may have implications in cancer types far beyond prostate.’