Vitamin E Prevents Lung Cancer -News Media Virtually Silent on Positive Vitamin

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 29, 2008

 

 

Vitamin E Prevents Lung Cancer

News Media Virtually Silent on Positive Vitamin Research

_http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n18.shtml_

(http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n18.shtml)

 

(OMNS, October 29, 2008) Researchers at the University of Texas Anderson

Cancer Center have found that taking more vitamin E substantially reduces lung

cancer. Their new study shows that people consuming the highest amounts of

vitamin E had the greatest benefit. When they compared persons taking the most

vitamin E with those taking the least, there was a 61% reduction in lung

cancer risk. (1)

 

Lung cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer on earth; over 1.3 million

people are diagnosed with it each year. With medical treatment, survival

rates are " consistently poor, " says Cancer Research UK. Lung cancer kills

nearly

1.2 million per year. It accounts for 12% of all cancers, but results in 18%

of all cancer deaths. (2) Anything that can reduce these dismal facts is

important news . . .very important. Yet the mainstream media have virtually

ignored vitamin E's important role as a cancer fighter.

 

A sixty-one percent reduction in lung cancer with vitamin E? How could the

news media have missed this one?

 

The news media probably did not miss it: they simply did not report it. They

are biased. You can see for yourself what bias there is. Try a " Google "

search for any of the major newspapers or broadcast media, using the name of

the

news organization along with the phrase " vitamin E lung cancer. " When you do,

you will find that it will quickly bring up previous items alleging that

vitamin E might (somehow) increase cancer risk. You will find little or nothing

at all on how vitamin E prevents cancer. Indeed, the bias is so strong that

even a qualified search for " increased vitamin E reduces lung cancer " will

still, and preferentially, bring up media coverage alleging that vitamin E is

harmful. Negative reporting sells newspapers and pulls in viewing audiences. The

old editors' adage must still be true: " If it bleeds, it leads. "

 

Here's more positive vitamin E cancer research that the media " missed. " A

study in 2002 looked at patients with colon cancer " who received a daily dose

of 750 mg of vitamin E during a period of 2 weeks. Short-term supplementation

with high doses of dietary vitamin E leads to increased CD4:CD8 ratios and to

enhanced capacity by their T cells to produce the T helper 1 cytokines

interleukin 2 and IFN-gamma. In 10 of 12 patients, an increase of 10% or more

(average, 22%) in the number of T cells producing interleukin 2 was seen after

2

weeks of vitamin E supplementation. " The authors concluded that " dietary

vitamin E may be used to improve the immune functions in patients with advanced

cancer. " That improvement was achieved in a mere two weeks merits special

attention. (3)

 

Was it on the news? Did you hear about how high doses of vitamin E help

cancer patients' immune systems in only two weeks? Why not? Might the answer

possibly have anything to do with money? One cannot watch television or read a

magazine or newspaper without it being obvious that drug company cash is one of

the media's very largest sources of revenue. Given where their advertising

income comes from, it is hardly a big surprise that media reporting on

vitamins is biased. Well-publicized vitamin scares feed the pharmaceutical

industry.

Successful reports of safe, inexpensive vitamin therapy do not.

 

One commentator has observed that pharmaceutical and other **corporations

marshal huge public relations efforts on behalf of their agendas. In the United

States the 170,000 public relations employees whose job it is to manipulate

news, public opinion and public policy in the interests of their clients

outnumber news reporters by 40,000.** (4) Another commentator wrote that

**Janine

Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a news media watchdog

group, told the American Free Press that 60 percent of journalists surveyed

by FAIR admitted that advertisers *try to change stories (and) there is an

overwhelming influence of corporations and advertisers* on broadcast and print

news reporting.** (5)

 

Drug companies don't have any drug that can reduce lung cancer risk by 61%.

If they did, you would have heard all about it in their advertisements. And

it would be all over the news. Positive drug studies get the headlines.

Positive vitamin studies rarely do. This is an enormous public health problem

with

enormous consequences. A cynic might say that press and television coverage

of a vitamin study tends to be inversely proportionate to the study's clinical

usefulness. Truly valuable research does not scare people; it helps people

get well. It would be difficult to identify anything more helpful than

actively reporting the story when a vitamin is shown to reduce lung cancer by

61%.

 

The good news about how important high quantities of vitamin E are in

combating cancer is not arising out of nowhere. A US National Library of

Medicine

MEDLINE search will bring up over 3,000 studies on the subject, some dating

back to 1946. By the early 1950s, research clearly supported the use of vitamin

E against cancer. (6) Before 1960, vitamin E was shown to reduce the side

effects of radiation cancer treatment. (7) In reviewing vitamin E research, one

notes that the high-dose studies got the best results.

 

Vitamin E is not the sure cure for cancer. It is not certain prevention,

either. Stopping cigarette smoking is essential. But vitamin E is part of the

solution, and we need more of it. An independent panel of physicians and

researchers (8) has recently called for increasing the daily recommended intake

for

vitamin E to 200 IU. The present US RDA/DRI is a mere 15-20 IU/day.

 

It is time to raise it. A lot.

 

References:

 

(1) Mahabir S, Schendel K, Dong YQ, Barrera SL, Spitz MR, Forman MR. Dietary

alpha-, beta-, gamma- and delta-tocopherols in lung cancer risk. Int J

Cancer. 2008 Sep 1;123(5):1173-80.

 

(2)

_http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/geographic/world/commoncancers/_

(http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/geographic/world/commoncancers/)

 

(3) Malmberg KJ, Lenkei R, Petersson M et al. A short-term dietary

supplementation of high doses of vitamin E increases T helper 1 cytokine

production in

patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2002 Jun;

8(6):1772-8.

 

(4) Robbins R. Global problems and the culture of capitalism. Allyn and

Bacon, 1999, p 138.

_http://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising_

(http://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising)

 

(5) Prestage J. Mainstream journalism: Shredding the First Amendment. Online

Journal, November 7, 2002.

_http://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising_

(http://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising)

 

(6) Telford IR. The influence of alpha tocopherol on lung tumors in strain A

mice. Tex Rep Biol Med. 1955;13(3):515-21. Swick RW, Baumann CA, Miller WL

Jr, Rumsfeld HW Jr. Tocopherol in tumor tissues and effects of tocopherol on

the development of liver tumors. Cancer Res. 1951 Dec;11(12):948-53.

 

(7) Fischer W. [The protective effect of tocopherol against toxic phenomena

connected with the roentgen irradiation of mammary carcinoma.] Munch Med

Wochenschr. 1959 Sep 4;101:1487-8. German. Also: Sabatini C, Balli L,

Tagliavini

R. [Effects of vitamin E and testosterone in comparisons of skin exposed to

high doses of roentgen rays administered by semi-contact technic.] Riforma

Med. 1955 Apr 30;69(18):Suppl, 1-4. Italian. See also: Graham JB, Graham RM.

Enhanced effectiveness of radiotherapy in cancer of the uterine cervix. Surg

Forum. 1953;(38th Congress):332-8.

 

(8) Doctors say, Raise the RDAs now. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service,

October 30, 2007. _http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v03n10.shtml_

(http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v03n10.shtml)

 

For more information:

 

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free access at _http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom_

(http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom) .

 

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