Vitamin C, E Supplements Won't Help Prevent Cancer

Findings follow similar results for the prevention of heart disease

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

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SUNDAY, Nov. 16 (HealthDay News) -- Coming on the heels of two studies discounting the usefulness of vitamin B, folic acid, vitamin D and calcium supplements for cancer prevention, U.S. researchers report that vitamins C and E supplements won't help prevent cancer, either.

The same team also recently reported that vitamin C and E supplements weren't helpful in protecting users against heart disease.

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"At least in the context of two very common outcomes -- cardioprotection and chemoprevention -- we see no compelling evidence to take vitamin E or C supplements," said one of the study's authors, Dr. Howard Sesso, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Sesso is expected to present the findings Sunday at an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting in Washington, D.C.

The study included almost 15,000 male physicians who were randomly assigned to take a 500 milligram vitamin C supplement daily and 400 international units of vitamin E every other day, or placebo pills for the 10 years of the study. All of the men were over the age of 50 at the start of the trial.

The participants experienced a total of 1,929 cases of cancer, including 1,013 prostate cancers. Overall, 490 men taking vitamin E developed prostate cancer compared to 523 in the placebo group, a difference that Sesso said was not statistically significant. Similar results were seen for vitamin C. The overall risk of cancer generally was also not statistically significant between the two groups.

"This is a very large, long-term clinical trial, and it was determined there was no effect from E or C," Sesso concluded.

Another expert wasn't surprised by the findings.

"This is preliminary data, but it is pretty consistent with what we're seeing in other research with individual nutrients. When you take the nutrient out of its natural environment, it may not be protective," said Jennifer Crum, a nutritionist at the New York University Cancer Institute, who added that in foods, vitamins and other nutrients likely work together to provide protection against cancer.

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