Vitamin supplements fail to reduce cancer risk in women

This has been a dismal year for vitamin supplements. People continue to buy them but data from numerous controlled clinical trials published this year have failed to show that vitamin supplements decrease the risk of various diseases, such as cancer. An overview of the findings was published in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month by reporter Karen Kaplan.

Adding to the tally of failed vitamin trials is a study published yesterday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that found women who took beta carotene or vitamin C or E or a combination of supplements had a similar risk of cancer as women who did not take the supplements. The study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School tested the supplements on 7,627 women. After more than nine years of follow-up, there was no difference in cancer risk.

Studies following the health habits of large groups of people have shown that eating lots of fruits and vegetables is linked to a lower risk of cancer and other diseases, and the advice to eat multiple servings of fruits and vegetables each day has not changed. It will take more research to understand why a healthy diet seems to have disease-prevention powers that are lacking in use of supplements.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Dr. Demetrius Albanes of the National Cancer Institute points out that the new study still contributes to a better understanding of cancer processes. For example, the study found some evidence that vitamin E may reduce colon cancer risk and beta carotene was linked to a modest rise in lung cancer risk. These findings have also been shown in previous trials.

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Vitamin E. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times 

Comments

[airplane]

them who do research do so on grants mostly, thus they must say something to justify them selfs, If you do like what you hear today fear not, someone will show other wise in thier research tomorrow.

[mike]

What I would like to know is if the supplemments used in the study are created in a lab or are they gotten from nature?

[Supplements from Foods]

Very nice.

A Canadian company, Naturally Nova Scotia, makes supplements from foods instead of synthetics. The have vitamin C from fruit, herbal tinctures, green drinks, vitamin D3, and others.