Cancer
Vitamins may cut cancer risk in some people
By Ben Wasserman
Nov 5, 2008 - 11:43:21 AM

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Got high bloo.d pressure?  Take vitam.in C

Wednesday November 5, 2008 - Vitamin B supplements including folate, vitamin B6 and vitamin B 12 may not help prevent cancer, according to a new study led by Dr. Shumin Zhang and colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association followed 5,442 female health professionals age 63 on average in the United States for 7.5 years and found taking vitamin B supplements did not make any difference in cancer risk or death risk from cancer.   The women had cardiovascular disease or risk factors like high blood pressure or high cholesterol levels.

The researchers did find however that among women aged 65 and older, those taking the daily B vitamins had a 25 percent reduced risk of developing any type of cancer and a 38 percent reduced risk of developing breast cancer.

Another study led by Zhang and colleagues and published in May 2008 in the American Journal of Epidemiology suggests that taking multivitamin supplements may not help protect against breast cancer.

The study showed that those who took multivitamins in the past or currently had almost the same risk of breast cancer.

The study followed 37,920 women aged 45 or older for 10 years.   During the follow-up, 1,171 cases of invasive breast cancer were recorded.

However, taking vitamins was inversely associated with risk breast cancer among women consuming more than 10 grams of alcohol per day and with risk of es.trogenreceptor negativepro.gesterone receptornegative breast cancer, but not significantly.

Zhang and team also found that "Multivitamin use was nonsignificantly associated with a reduced risk of developing < or =2-cm breast tumors but an increased risk of >2-cm tumors."

But over all, there was generally no association between vitamin supplements and breast cancer risk.

Some early studies suggest that dietary intake of B vitamins or other vitamins may help reduce risk of cancer, but B vitamins pills and supplements may increase the risk.

Folate is found in many foods including bananas, oranges, leafy green vegetables, asparagus, broccoli, and many sorts of beans and peas, and fortified cereals.  Vitamin B6 is found in fortified cereal, bananas, salmon, turkey, chicken, potato, spinach and vitamin b 12 is found in clams, mussels, crab, salmon, and beef, to name a few.