It's been suspected that taking too many vitamins may spike men's risk of dying from prostate cancer. On Wednesday, the biggest study yet to link high-dose multivitamins and prostate damage was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Government scientists have been looking at the diet and health of almost 300,000 men. One third reported taking a daily multivitamin. Five percent were heavy users, marked by use more than seven times per week. Within five years of the study's launch, 10,241 men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. About 1,476 had an advanced form of the disease. And 179 died.
It seems heavy multivitamin users were nearly twice as likely to get fatal prostate cancer as men who never took the pills. Yet, oddly, researchers found no link between multivitamin use and early-stage prostate cancer. It could be that vitamins have little effect until a tumor appears -- and then it spurs growth.
1. Hello!
I was wondering if there were any other underlying factors that may have contributed to the deaths. I mean were the vitamins the men were taking synthetic or whole food based, or was over usage a factor, or did some of the men have an onset of the disease before hand, can prostate cancer have a genetic factor?
I have a whole food vitamin blog and it primarily praises the use of whole food vitamins as an all natural alternative for greater nutritional support in a vitamin supplement. I have to say that I haven't heard of a 100% whole food based vitamin being a candidate for causing cancer. I can't say that about synthetic vitamins.:-)
Posted at 8:00PM on Aug 7th 2007 by Donald Whitehead