Not so preventative: Antioxidant vitamins may still be good for you, but the evidence linking them to cancer protection is waning.
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SYDNEY: Vitamins C and E do not appear to reduce the risk of cancer, according to two large new studies refute earlier work suggesting that antioxidants have a protective effect.
"Neither vitamin E nor vitamin C supplementation reduced the risk of prostate or total cancer," says one of the reports, which are both to appear in January in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"These data provide no support for the use of these supplements in the prevention of cancer in middle-aged and older men," it says.
Disappointing news
The findings are disappointing news for many millions of people around the world who take vitamin supplements in the hope of warding off illness - and also for drug companies who make vast profits from selling them.
The research appears to debunk earlier observational studies that linked use of vitamins E and C with reduced risk of certain forms of cancers, including cancer of the prostate.
In the mid-1990s several trials seemed to suggest that antioxidants such as selenium, Vitamin E and beta carotene could significantly reduce the incidence of prostate cancer, commented Peter Gann a pathologist at the University of Illinois in Chicago, in an accompanying JAMA editorial.
"Now, 12 years later, comes the disappointing news that two major trials conceived during the wave of hope found that neither selenium nor vitamin E supplementation, alone or in combination, produced any reductions in prostate cancer or cancer of any type," said Gann who was not involved in the research.
SELECT study
Some 15,000 men aged 50 and older participated in the first study, led by J. Michael Gaziano of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The trial included an eight-year follow-up period, but neither vitamin E or C appeared to appreciably reduce their cancer risk.
The second study, the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT) was led by Scott M. Lippman at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston.
It found that vitamin E or selenium supplements, whether taken alone or in combination, appear not to reduce the risk of prostate cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
vitamins and cancer
Vitamins are vital and Minerals that matter.
Today orthomolecular role of vitamins is so very well understood. Certain studies showing few adversities just cannot be generalized against role of vitamins and antioxidants.
Still there is a lot to understand .let us not conclude on a few pre-conceived notions.
Talluri Vijai Kumar
Antioxidants may not protect against cancer
Once again, we do not know what to believe. First antioxidants made a difference. Now research suggests that they may be a waste of money.
I am not a researcher so I'm probably not going to spend hours reading up on this study. But here is something I am wondering about: Did the study use the a-tocopherol synthetic form of vitamin E that's about half as effective as the mixed tocopherol form? This might have a negative impact on the outcome of the study. Anyway, I would not trust these researchers with my life.
Eating foods rich in vitamins are much better than just taking the solitary vitamins and then thinking they are magical elixirs to cure all ailments.
Daniel,
South Africa
anti-oxidants
For Australians we have two strikes against us. First our soil is one of the worst in the world for plant, vegetable and fruit nutrition. Secondly, our supermarket storage and delivery systems for fresh fruit and vegatables tends to favour selecting fruits and some veg before they are fully developed. Also, as we get older we are less capable of absorbing the full nutritional value of what we eat. Hence the comment about natural and synthetic vit E. The synthetic is harder to absorb.(filtered water helps by the way and so does your PH factor, acid is bad news.) Vit C has other qualities (read Linus Pauling a great advocate of Vit C. He is also a double Nobel Prize winner.) What has been long established is that anti-oxidants are great free-radical fighters! While younger people can get away without nutritional supplements, older people are more vulnerable.
(Ken Bullock author)