Vitamin pills don't cut lung cancer risk: study

[Guest guest]

Vitamin pills don't cut lung cancer risk: study

 

Last Updated: 2008-02-29 9:01:11 -0400

Reuters Health

By Will Dunham

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who take vitamin supplements are just

as likely as those who don't to develop lung cancer, and vitamin E

supplements may actually slightly raise the risk, researchers said on

Friday.

 

Their study involved 77,721 people in Washington state ages 50 to 76,

tracking their use over the prior decade of supplemental

multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate to see if this would

offer protection from lung cancer.

 

None of the vitamins looked at in the study was tied to a reduced

risk of lung cancer. In fact, people who took high doses of vitamin

E, especially smokers, had a small but statistically significant

elevated risk, the researchers said.

 

" If you could find some sort of magic pill -- a pill you could take

once a day to decrease your risk -- that would be ideal. But we

obviously, unfortunately, didn't find that in our study, " lead

researcher Dr. Christopher Slatore of the University of Washington in

Seattle said in a telephone interview.

 

The people in the study were followed for four years and 521

developed lung cancer, the vast majority of them smokers or former

smokers, Slatore's team reported in the American Journal of

Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

 

" Some estimates are that around 50 percent of the American public

takes supplemental vitamins of some sort. There's been a lot of

thought about: 'do these supplements actually prevent chronic

diseases like lung cancer, other cancers, heart disease?' " Slatore

said.

 

VALIDATING OTHER STUDIES

 

The research did not look at beta-carotene, but previous work showed

that people taking beta-carotene supplements, particularly smokers,

had a higher risk of developing lung cancer than those who did not.

 

In those in the new study who developed lung cancer, the researchers

saw a small increased risk associated with vitamin E supplements in

addition to the expected links to smoking, family history and age.

 

This amounted to a 28 percent increased risk of developing lung

cancer for those taking vitamin E supplements at a dose of 400 mg

daily for 10 years, the researchers said.

 

Vitamin E is an antioxidant, thought to protect body tissue from

damage caused by so-called free radicals, which are unstable

substances that can harm cells, tissues and organs. It also is

important in the formation of red blood cells.

 

" For folks -- especially smokers -- I would definitely recommend that

they not take vitamin E (as a supplement) unless they have a very

strong reason to take it, " Slatore said.

 

The notion that vitamin supplements are healthful, or at least not

harmful, arises from the desire of many people to match the benefits

of a healthful diet with a convenient pill, Dr. Tim Byers of the

University of Colorado School of Medicine wrote in an editorial

accompanying the study.

 

" Over the past two decades, we have been repeatedly disappointed in

the ability of vitamin supplements to reduce risk for cancers at

several sites, including the stomach, colorectum, breast and lung, "

Byers wrote.

 

" Foods that are rich in vitamins seem to be associated with reduced

risk of cancer, but vitamins packaged as pills clearly do not have

the same effect, " Byers added.

 

Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

 

Article Link:

http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2008/02/29/eline/links/20080229el

in010.html

[Guest guest]

How true, how true!! When are people going to realize that

isolated/synthetic/man-made supplements are not food! You can't

duplicate in a lab what you can find in nature. Get your

vitamins/minerals/amino acids/chlorophyll/etc. from organic whole foods.

 

Carol

 

, " rpautrey2 " <rpautrey2

wrote:

>

> Vitamin pills don't cut lung cancer risk: study