Lebanese doctor in the United States discovers cancer

CHICAGO: According to a study by a Lebanese doctor in the United States, adding vitamin D to the diet can help cancer patients live longer.
The number of people with cancer in the Middle East is expected to double by 2030, with bad, colon and lung cancer being the leading causes.
In the United States, cancer is the second leading cause of death.
But 27-year-old Dr. Tarek Haykal, who is completing her residency in internal medicine at the Hurley Medical Center at Michigan State University in Flint, has published a study suggesting that vitamin D may have a beneficial effect on cancer, not just for people from the Middle East, but the world.

Dr. Haykal and his team conducted a meta-badysis of 79,000 patients. The findings suggest that a regular vitamin D supplement for at least three years can help cancer patients live longer.

This corresponds to a decline of almost 13% in the mortality of cancer patients.
The study was presented at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago recently.

"Vitamin D had a significant effect on reducing the risk of death in people with cancer, but unfortunately, the study showed no evidence that it could protect against cancer" said Dr. Haykal, one of the main authors of the study. .
The other doctors in the research team were Varun Samji, Yazan Zayed, Inderdeep Gakhal, Vijay Veerapaneni, Michele Obeid, Babikir Kheiri, Sunil Badami, Ghbadan Bachuwa and Rizwan Danish.
"What we tried to do, is to see if vitamin D had beneficial effects for cancer patients, primarily in primary prevention," said Dr. Haykal.
"When we talk about primary prevention, we are talking about healthy people in the community, if taking vitamin D actually affects their cancer outcomes."
Three years of vitamin D supplements "were enough," he said.
"The main benefit has been cancer mortality. We therefore tried to say that the number of possible cancer deaths in patients taking vitamin D was lower than in others.
"Does this mean we should tell people to take vitamin D. Yes, we need more awareness and we encourage people to take vitamin D."
Vitamin D supplements have been studied as primary prevention for diseases such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, diabetes mellitus and cancer, said Dr. Haykal.
Today, the issue of cancer is taken more seriously.
"The world's attention has never been focused on vitamin D, but we are now learning more and more that vitamin D is important for the health of your bones and your health in general," he said. he declared.
"We have more evidence that vitamin D has many benefits and we encourage patients and people in general to make sure they maintain good levels of vitamin D."
Vitamin D – "the vitamin of the sun" – comes mainly from sun exposure, but also comes from diets including fish, mushrooms and egg yolk.

But even with this diet and sun exposure, deficiencies persist, he said.
Haykal, born in Lebanon and trained in medicine at the Lebanese University of Beirut, started his three-year residency training at Hurley in 2017, so the impact of cancer on people in the Middle East is important for him.
"Some data suggest that even though the Middle East is one of the most sun-exposed regions in the world, we still lack a lot of vitamin D," he said.
"Vitamin D deficiency is an important topic right now, all over the world, hence the importance of supplementation that we talked about in our research."
Haykal said that he had always been motivated by the desire to help those in need. "After my medical studies, I still only interested in the sickest patients," he said.
"I have always had a lot of pbadion and energy for those who are sick, such as those who have cancer or who are in an intensive care unit," he said.
"So that's where I started leaning towards the people who really needed my help, energy and hope. I started to focus on oncology and this pbadion grew. After finishing my medical studies, I almost knew that I wanted to do internal medicine oncology. "
Inspired by his colleagues and mentors, Haykal published 30 medical articles during his two years at Hurley Medical Center.
"Vitamin D was coming to me as an idea would come to anyone," he said, adding that he had begun to study the subject with colleagues.
"Combining the data, we found that vitamin D supplementation for at least three years provided the general population with benefits in terms of cancer-related mortality and reduced risk, but unfortunately it did not a lot of effect on the incidence of cancer. "
Dr. Haykal recommends that people have their vitamin D levels checked during routine health examinations.
"People are not as aware of vitamin D as it does not necessarily cause immediate medical problems, rather it is a chronic process, and if you are deficient you will never have symptoms. alarming.
"On the contrary, you should check with your doctor and make sure you are well supplemented.
"Staying healthy does not mean you have to be obsessed with everything you eat or drink, but it's important to adopt a healthy lifestyle."