Yesterday we wrote about the potential ill effects of taking supplements, and today we continue in the same vein, as a new study has linked the use of vitamin E pills to prostate cancer. According to the results of this study led by a doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, for every 1,000 men who took the vitamin, there were 11 additional cases of prostate cancer, compared to men taking a placebo.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, involved over 35,000 men aged 50 and older who were randomly assigned to receive either a daily vitamin E pill or selenium supplement, both pills, or a placebo. After a total of seven years of follow-up, researchers found that there was a 17 percent increased risk of prostate cancer among men taking vitamin E compared to the placebo group.
ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava observes, Though the men in the study were getting 18 times the recommended daily dose (22 IU) of the vitamin, and the elevated risk of prostate cancer was quite small, we say again: Why bother taking any risk if there is no benefit? And, while the vitamin E dose used was much higher than recommended, it is actually a common enough dosage used by a quarter of older men who take these supplements.
As Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, puts it: There should be a global warning that ¦excessive use of vitamins has not been proven to be beneficial and may be the opposite.
This is just further evidence that vitamins and supplements, in the absence of specific indications or evidence of malnutrition or vitamin deficiency, lack any beneficial effects, and may, in actuality, lead to an adverse outcome, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross.