By Miranda Hitti Nov. 17, 2008 -- Taking vitamin E and vitamin C supplements may not make cancer less likely, a new study shows. Researchers have now analyzed study data on cancer risk and found no sign of lower cancer risk in people taking vitamin E...

Vitamin C or E pills do not help prevent cancer in men, concludes the same big study that last week found these supplements ineffective for warding off heart disease.

The public has been whipsawed by good and bad news about vitamins, much of it from test-tube or animal studies and hyped manufacturer claims. Even when researchers compare people's diets and find that a vitamin seems to help, the benefit may not translate when that nutrient is obtained a different way, such as a pill.

"Antioxidants, which include vitamin C and vitamin E, have been shown as a group to have potential benefit," but have not been tested individually for a long enough time to know, said Howard Sesso of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

The Physicians Health Study, which he helped lead, was designed to do that. It involved 14,641 male doctors, 50 or older, including 1,274 who had cancer when or before the study started in 1997. They were included so scientists could see whether the vitamins could prevent a second cancer.

Participants were put into four groups and given vitamin E, vitamin C, both, or dummy pills. The dose of E was 400 international units every other day; C was 500 milligrams daily.

After an average of eight years, there were 1,929 cases of cancer, including 1,013 cases of prostate cancer, which many had hoped vitamin E would prevent.

However, rates of...
Click here to read the content (Source CTV.ca)