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No protective effect on Cancer from
long-term Vitamin E or Vitamin C
supplementation
Newswise — Data from a
large-scale prevention trial presented at
the American Association for Cancer
Research’s Seventh Annual International
Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention
Research show no protective effect from
vitamin E on prostate cancer or vitamin C
supplementation on total cancer.
The Physicians’ Health Study II is a
large-scale, long-term, randomized clinical
trial that included 14,641 physicians who
were at least 50 years old at enrollment.
These physicians were given
400 IU of vitamin E every other day or its
placebo, or 500 mg of vitamin C daily or its
placebo.
Researchers followed these
patients for up to 10 years for the
development of cancer with high rates of
completion of annual questionnaires, and the
confirmation of reported cancer endpoints.
Analyses indicate that
randomization to vitamin E did not have a
significant effect on prostate cancer.
This lack of effect for
vitamin E also extended to total cancer.
Vitamin C had a similar lack of effect on
total cancer.
“After nearly 10 years of
supplementation with either vitamin E or
vitamin C, we found no evidence supporting
the use of either supplement in the
prevention of cancer,” said Howard D. Sesso,
Sc.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor of
medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“While vitamin E and C
supplement use did not produce any
protective benefits, they also did not cause
any harm,” he added.
Previous laboratory research
and observational studies in which people
who reported eating a diet rich in vitamins
E and C were found to have a lower risk of
cancer, had suggested that taking these
vitamins as individual supplements may offer
some protective benefits.
Study co-author and principal
investigator J. Michael Gaziano, M.D.,
M.P.H., associate professor of medicine at
Brigham and Women’s Hospital and VA Boston,
adds, “Individual vitamin supplements such
as vitamin E and C do not appear to provide
the same potential advantages as vitamins
included as part of a healthy, balanced
diet.”
Finally, Sesso said that
these results provide clinically meaningful
new information.
“Our results represent
one of only a few clinical trials that have
tested this idea.
The final component of the
Physicians’ Health Study II, testing daily
multivitamin supplementation, remains
ongoing.”
The mission of the American
Association for Cancer Research is to
prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907,
AACR is the world’s oldest and largest
professional organization dedicated to
advancing cancer research.
The membership includes more
than 28,000 basic, translational and
clinical researchers; health care
professionals; and cancer survivors and
advocates in the United States and 80 other
countries.
The AACR marshals the full
spectrum of expertise from the cancer
community to accelerate progress in the
prevention, diagnosis and treatment of
cancer through high-quality scientific and
educational programs. It funds innovative,
meritorious research grants.
The AACR Annual Meeting
attracts more than 17,000 participants who
share the latest discoveries and
developments in the field. Special
conferences throughout the year present
novel data across a wide variety of topics
in cancer research, treatment and patient
care.
The AACR publishes five
major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer
Research; Clinical Cancer Research;
Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular
Cancer Research; and Cancer Epidemiology,
Biomarkers & Prevention.
The AACR’s most recent
publication and its sixth major journal,
Cancer Prevention Research, is dedicated
exclusively to cancer prevention, from
preclinical research to clinical trials.
The AACR also publishes CR, a
magazine for cancer survivors and their
families, patient advocates, physicians and
scientists. CR provides a forum for sharing
essential, evidence-based information and
perspectives on progress in cancer research,
survivorship and advocacy.
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