The breast cancer patients who lack vitamin D in their bodies are much more likely to have their cancer spread and to die from the disease, articulated a new study in United States.

The researchers studied more than 500 women with breast cancer and found that women deficient in vitamin D were 94 percent more likely to have their cancer spread and 73 percent more likely to die from their cancer.

The findings of the study—which are expected to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting, to be held May 31 to June 3, in Chicago —suggest that vitamin D deficiency is very common in women with breast cancer. The study found that only 24 percent of the patients had adequate levels of vitamin D when they were diagnosed. The researchers discovered that human breast cancer cells shriveled up and died when vitamin D was added to them.

Dr. Nancy Davidson, director of the breast cancer program at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, "This study found that vitamin D deficiency is very common among women with breast cancer, and it suggests that vitamin D deficiency is linked to poorer outcomes in these women."

Dr. Anne McTiernan at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center said, "This study is significant because it tells us this may be one thing women can do to improve their prognosis."

JoEllen Welsh, a professor at the State University of New York at Albany, said, "Vitamin D is pretty unique in its action in that it does enter the cancer cells and induces them to undergo a cell death process." She asserted, "The effects of vitamin D on breast cancer cells are very similar to the established drug Tamoxifen that many women take for breast cancer."

Vital for strong bones, Vitamin D has often been linked in several studies with cancer prevention; not only with breast cancer but also with colon and prostate cancers.