WebMD.com – New studies show that daily up take of vitamin C & E pills won’t lower the risk of having cancer, the Physicians’ Health Study II presented a conclusion of that the dietary supplement of vitamin C & E pills won’t lower the risk of stroke or heart attack.
Researchers took that results and applied it on cancer research to find the effects of vitamins on cancer’s patients, they also found that patients in study who took the dietary supplement of vitamin E & C didn’t get the result of lowering the risk of cancer.
The study was presented yesterday in Washington, D.C., at an international meeting on cancer prevention research hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Supplement Study:
The study included some 14,600 male doctors aged 50 and older in the U.S. Some of the doctors were assigned to take 400 international units (IU) of vitamin E every other day. Others were assigned to take 500 milligrams of vitamin C every day during the study. For comparison, a third group of doctors got placebo pills.
Among all the doctors, there were 1,929 cases of cancer, including 1,013 cases of prostate cancer, during the study. Cancer rates were similar among the doctors taking vitamin E or vitamin C supplements and those taking the placebo.
“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,” Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH, says in an AACR news release.
Sesso, who is an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, adds that there was also no sign that either supplement was harmful.
The findings are only about vitamin E and vitamin C from supplements, not foods.
“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,” J. Michael Gaziano, MD, MPH, says in the AACR news release.
Gaziano, an associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, worked with Sesso on the study.
