ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2019
Circulating vitamin D concentrations and risk of breast and prostate cancer: a Mendelian randomization study.
Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 32 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
32 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Multifaceted Role of Vitamin D in Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review of Genetic and Pathway-Based Mechanisms.Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention : APJCP · 2024Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Vitamin D and human health: evidence from Mendelian randomization studies.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Pooled it
- Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review of Mendelian Randomization Studies.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- Vitamin D and Multiple Health Outcomes: An Umbrella Review of Observational Studies, Randomized Controlled Trials, and Mendelian Randomization Studies.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Pooled it
- Systematic review of Mendelian randomization studies on risk of cancer.BMC medicine · 2022Pooled it
- The double disparity: Vitamin D deficiency and lethal prostate cancer in black men.The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology · 2025Review
- Neither VitD nor VitD binding protein or VitD receptor has causal effect on cancers: a Mendelian randomization study.Archives of medical science : AMS · 2025Article
- Vitamin D and potential effects on cancers: a review.Molecular biology reports · 2024Review
- Article
- Association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and prostate-specific antigen: a retrospective study in men without prostate pathology.Advances in laboratory medicine · 2023Article
- A Mendelian randomization study on causal effects of 25(OH) vitamin D levels on diabetic nephropathy.BMC nephrology · 2023Article
- The influence of vitamin D supplementation and strength training on health biomarkers and chromosomal damage in community-dwelling older adults.Redox biology · 2023Article
- Proteome-wide Mendelian randomization implicates nephronectin as an actionable mediator of the effect of obesity on COVID-19 severity.Nature metabolism · 2023Article
- Levels of Vitamin D and Expression of the Vitamin D Receptor in Relation to Breast Cancer Risk and Survival.Nutrients · 2022Article
- Vitamin D, Th17 Lymphocytes, and Breast Cancer.Cancers · 2022Review
- How competing risks affect the epidemiological relationship between vitamin D and prostate cancer incidence? A population-based study.Andrologia · 2022Article
- Applying Mendelian randomization to appraise causality in relationships between nutrition and cancer.Cancer causes & control : CCC · 2022Article
- Association Between Neuroticism and Risk of Lung Cancer: Results From Observational and Mendelian Randomization Analyses.Frontiers in oncology · 2022Article
- Observational
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
22 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundObservational studies have suggested an association between circulating vitamin D concentrations [25(OH)D] and risk of breast and prostate cancer, which was not supported by a recent Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis comprising 15 748 breast and 22 898 prostate-cancer cases. Demonstrating causality has proven challenging and one common limitation of MR studies is insufficient power.
methodsWe aimed to determine whether circulating concentrations of vitamin D are causally associated with the risk of breast and prostate cancer, by using summary-level data from the largest ever genome-wide association studies conducted on vitamin D (N = 73 699), breast cancer (Ncase = 122 977) and prostate cancer (Ncase = 79 148). We constructed a stronger instrument using six common genetic variants (compared with the previous four variants) and applied several two-sample MR methods.
resultsWe found no evidence to support a causal association between 25(OH)D and risk of breast cancer [OR per 25 nmol/L increase, 1.02 (95% confidence interval: 0.97-1.08), P = 0.47], oestrogen receptor (ER)+ [1.00 (0.94-1.07), P = 0.99] or ER- [1.02 (0.90-1.16), P = 0.75] subsets, prostate cancer [1.00 (0.93-1.07), P = 0.99] or the advanced subtype [1.02 (0.90-1.16), P = 0.72] using the inverse-variance-weighted method. Sensitivity analyses did not reveal any sign of directional pleiotropy.
conclusionsDespite its almost five-fold augmented sample size and substantially improved statistical power, our MR analysis does not support a causal effect of circulating 25(OH)D concentrations on breast- or prostate-cancer risk. However, we can still not exclude a modest or non-linear effect of vitamin D. Future studies may be designed to understand the effect of vitamin D in subpopulations with a profound deficiency.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.