Is there a relationship between vitamin B6 status and cancer?
“We examined the association of prediagnostic plasma concentrations of pyridoxal-5’-phosphate (PLP), an active form of vitamin B6, with postmenopausal breast cancer risk.
“Women with plasma PLP concentrations in the highest quartile had a 30% reduced risk of invasive breast cancer (CI: 0.50–0.98) compared to the women in the lowest PLP quartile (P for trend=0.02).
“These data suggest that higher circulating levels of vitamin B6 are associated with a reduced risk of invasive postmenopausal breast cancer.” Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3493882/
There’s more.
“Several studies have shown that insufficient intake of vitamin B6 is associated with increased cancer risk and growing evidence indicates that diabetes patients have a higher risk of developing various types of cancer.” Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2018.00388/full
And more.
“Patients with breast (4), or colon (5,6), bladder (7), or laryngeal (8) cancers, and or Hodgkin’s disease (1) have lower plasma PLP levels compared with healthy controls. In vitro studies have shown that pharmacologic doses of vitamin B6 (from 0.25 to 5 mM) inhibit cell proliferation and protein synthesis in HepG2 human hepatoma cells (9), human malignant melanoma (10,11), and human lymphocytes (12). Mice pretreated with pyridoxal followed by injection of B16 melanoma cells had a 62% reduction in tumor weight compared to controls (11). These results suggest that vitamin B6 may have potential use as an antineoplastic agent.” Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1513048/
This all sounds positive. However, B6 supports heme synthesis, the rate at which I make new blood. If I take too much B6, I might make new blood too quickly, but I don’t want to make new blood too quickly. I want the cell turnover rate of my blood to be in the proper relationship to the cell turnover rate of the rest of me. According to the hypothesis presented in these pages—which posits time as the missing link in our analysis of disease—if I make new blood too quickly, I have leukemia.
Vitamin B6, Leukemia’s Deadly Addiction: https://www.cshl.edu/vitamin-b6-leukemias-deadly-addiction/
Researchers Find that Vitamin B6 Contributes to Survival of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center): https://www.mskcc.org/news/researchers-find-vitamin-b6-contributes-survival-acute-myeloid-leukemia-cells
