Here’s a bit of hopeful, nay extraordinary news if true:

Link: globeandmail.com: Vitamin D casts cancer prevention in new light.

A four-year clinical trial involving 1,200 women found those taking the vitamin had about a 60-per-cent reduction in cancer incidence, compared with those who didn’t take it, a drop so large — twice the impact on cancer attributed to smoking — it almost looks like a typographical error.

And in an era of pricey medical advances, the reduction seems even more remarkable because it was achieved with an over-the-counter supplement costing pennies a day.

One of the researchers who made the discovery, professor of medicine Robert Heaney of Creighton University in Nebraska, says vitamin D deficiency is showing up in so many illnesses besides cancer that nearly all disease figures in Canada and the U.S. will need to be re-evaluated. "We don’t really know what the status of chronic disease is in the North American population," he said, "until we normalize vitamin D status."

That’s rather a bit of news, don’t ya think? Taking your vitamins makes a bigger difference than quitting smoking. And/or you can get the benefit by going outside and standing in the sunshine for 10 or 15 minutes a day. So do both! (Hooray for living in Phoenix, the only place I’ve ever been that has "raging" sunshine…)