another oops?

[Guest guest]

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/jotn-mu051007.php

It must be that nasty beta-carotene . . . but beware the

zinc?

Maco

Contact: Liz Savage

jncimedia@...

301-841-1287

Journal of the

National Cancer Institute

Heavy multivitamin use may be linked to advanced prostate

cancer

The embargo has been lifted at the request of the

submitting PIO.

While regular multivitamin use is not linked with early or

localized prostate cancer, taking too many multivitamins may be

associated with an increased risk for advanced or fatal prostate cancers,

according to a study in the May 16 issue of the Journal of the

National Cancer Institute.

Millions of Americans take multivitamins because of a belief in their

potential health benefits, even though there is limited scientific

evidence that they prevent chronic disease. Researchers have wondered

what impact multivitamin use might have on cancer risk.

Karla Lawson, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.,

and colleagues followed 295,344 men enrolled in the National Institutes

of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study to determine the association between

multivitamin use and prostate cancer risk. After five years of follow-up,

10,241 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, including 8,765 with

localized cancers and 1,476 with advanced cancers.

The researchers found no association between multivitamin use and the

risk of localized prostate cancer. But they did find an increased risk of

advanced and fatal prostate cancer among men who used multivitamins more

than seven times a week, compared with men who did not use multivitamins.

The association was strongest in men with a family history of prostate

cancer and men who also took selenium, beta-carotene, or zinc

supplements.

“Because multivitamin supplements consist of a combination of several

vitamins and men using high levels of multivitamins were also more likely

to take a variety of individual supplements, we were unable to identify

or quantify individual components responsible for the associations that

we observed,” the authors write.

In an accompanying editorial, Goran Bjelakovic, M.D., of the University

of Nis in Serbia, and Christian Gluud, M.D., of Copenhagen University

Hospital in Denmark, discuss the positive and negative health effects of

antioxidant supplements. “Lawson [and colleagues] add to the growing

evidence that questions the beneficial value of antioxidant vitamin pills

in generally well-nourished populations and underscore the possibility

that antioxidant supplements could have unintended consequences for our

health,” the authors write.