Tuesday Oct 29, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- Women who are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer may be better off taking daily multivitamins with mineral supplements, a new study released in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment suggests.

S. Wassertheil-Smoller  from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, USA and colleagues conducted the study and found multivitamin use and mineral supplementation post diagnose with invasive breast cancer was associated with 26 to 30 percent reduced risk of mortality from the disease, compared with non-users.

Multivitamins and minerals are commonly used in the U.S.  The study was intended to examine how taking multivitamins with minerals supplements post diagnosis affects the risk of mortality from invasive breast cancer in postmenopausal women.

For the study, 7728 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 enrolled in the women’s health initiative in 40 clinical sites across the U.S. who were diagnosed with incident invasive breast cancer during the study were followed for a mean of 7.1 years after diagnosis.

The researchers found the association between taking multivitamins and minerals supplements and reduced risk of death from invasive breast cancer was significant even after multiple adjustments.

The study concluded that "Postmenopausal women with invasive breast cancer using MVM (multivitamins and minerals supplements) had lower breast cancer mortality than non-users. The results suggest a possible role for daily MVM use in attenuating breast cancer mortality in women with invasive breast cancer but the findings require confirmation." (David Liu)