Pathophysiology News -- Vitamin Supplements and Cancer Prevention

Bad news for those of you counting on vitamin supplements (especially antioxidants) to reduce your cancer risk. A new study to be released in the 7 January 2009 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates that vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene do not help prevent cancer or reduce cancer mortality. The study followed 7627 women who were cancer-free at the outset of the experiment. Control subjects were given placebos; one experimental group was given 500 mg of vitamin C daily; another experimental group was given 600 IU of vitamin E every other day; and a third experimental group took 50 mg of beta carotene every other day. The average duration of treatment was 9.4 years.

Six hundred twenty-four women went on to develop invasive cancer, with 176 of them dying. None of the antioxidants performed any better than the placebo in reducing total cancer incidence. Neither was there any statistically significant difference among the 4 groups in cancer mortality. Combined use of all three antioxidants was also found to have no effect.