Study: Vitamins tied to prostate cancer 1 hour, 8 minutes ago



There's more worrisome news about vitamins: Taking too many may increase men's risk of dying from prostate cancer.

The study, being published Wednesday, doesn't settle the issue. But it is the biggest yet to suggest high-dose multivitamins may harm the prostate, and the latest chapter in the confusing quest to tell whether taking various vitamins really helps a variety of conditions — or is a waste of money, or worse.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070515...XcszaaJtY_VJRIF

I have come across such claims before and I think the cause of tumor growth is the vitamins throwing the body out of balance. I bet if they analyzed further they would find that the people who took just around the RDA of all the multis had a lot lower incidence of cancer than those who took megadoses of 10 to 15 times the RDA of certain vitamins.

One of the problems is people take synthetic vitamins in unbalanced proportions. An example might by Vitamin A...retinol palmitate. People can easily get 5 to 6 times the RDA if you add up multivitamins, milk, fortified cereal. Well I don't think retinol palmitate appears very often in nature in such high concentration as you would find in cereals.

Another example is Ascorbic acid AKA Vitamin C. Well Ascorbic acid is not even vitamin C! The safe way to take vitamin c is either through fruits or along with a flavanoid complex. Add to that the fact that the more ascorbic acid you eat the more it kills your vitamin b stores. Then you gotta take more Bs and that messes something else up.

So the safest supplement is probably something that just has 100% of the RDA on the condition that none of your food is fortified.

Well... one explanation is that cancer cells also thrive on getting vitamins.

I'd be curious what the diets were like for those diagnosed with prostate cancer vs the rest the group.

I believe the criteria for defining RDA is that it should avoid nutrient deficiency, rather than it being an 'ideal' amount in some way. Therefore the RDA defines a minimum amount of a nutrient, but doesn't tell you anything about the amount that most benefits health. Of course too much of anything is toxic, so there is a ceiling. But I don't think it's automatic that 15 times the RDA, say, is going to be bad.

Well when it comes to something like retinol palmitate 1/2 the RDA can be toxic. I believe they are thinking of revising the RDA down now. Anyway, a matter of concern to me is that all the so called vitamins in a supplement pill are not really the vitamins on the label!

For example ascorbic acid is not Vitamin C, a molecule of ascorbic acid is not vitamin C but rather just a component of Vitamin C complex. What I know is that flavanoids are at least one component of Vitamin C complex so whoever takes megadoses of Ascorbic acid for their tumor is actually upsetting their balance of Vitamin C complex rather than helping themselves.

Retinol Palmitate, with the formula C36H60O2 is not Vitamin A! Its not the natural vitamin A that you can get from eating animals, its a synthetic compound that the body is not really used to dealing with. Add to that the fact that the body does not handle natural Vitamin A in excess quantities very well and you have a problem as far as cancer cells are concerned too I would speculate.

I could go on and on and on from A to Z but the point seems to be that unfortunately to a certain extent, vitamin supplements might be junk food!

This is not looking good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_carotene

Beta-carotene and cancer

It has been shown in trials that the use of synthetically-produced beta carotene (that is, beta carotene in supplement form such as the pills typically sold in stores) increases the rate of lung cancer and prostate cancer, and increases mortality in smokers. These results have been observed in beta carotene supplements and not in foods with naturally occurring beta carotene.[2]

An article on the American Cancer Society says that The Cancer Research Campaign has called for warning labels on beta carotene supplements to caution smokers that such supplements may increase the risk of lung cancer.[3]

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article (Vol. 330, No. 15) in 1994 about a trial which examined the relationship between daily supplementation of beta carotene and vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) and the incidence of lung cancer. The study was done using supplements and researchers were aware of the relationship between carotenoid-rich fruits and vegetables and lower lung cancer rates. The research concluded that no reduction in lung cancer was found in the participants using these supplements (beta-carotene), and furthermore, these supplements may, in fact, have harmful effects.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published an article (Vol. 88, No. 21) in 1996 about a trial that was conducted to determine if vitamin A (in the form of retinyl palmitate) and beta carotene had any beneficial effects to prevent cancer. The results indicate an increased risk of lung cancer for the participants who consumed the beta-carotene supplement.[4]

A review of all randomized controlled trials in the scientific literature by the Cochrane Collaboration published in JAMA in 2007 found that beta carotine increased mortality by 5% (Relative Risk 1.05, 95% confidence interval 1.01-1.08).[5]

I would give it a couple of months ... and then we will get the true story. This sounds like FUD from big pharma, FDA, AMA, etc.

The study doesn't come to any conclusions about which vitamins might be the culprit. These men simply popped several multivitamins a day. And don't the multis generally use the synthetic forms of vitamins?

Regarding this thread - I don't think that anyone should take the cheap synthetic vitamins in any quantity.

Remember that the big pharma coalition puts out one or two of these stories every month to generate FUD. Where are all the studies that show that vitamins and supplements reduce the risk of cancer?

This sounds like they paid someone to do a study of previous studies. First step is to throw out all studies that show benefit. They find some trival reason to throw out every positive study. Then only studies that show negative or no benefit are left. Then they are ready for step two - analyze the remaining studies.

Now there is overwhelming evidence that taking vitamins is dangerous!

Another option is they studied people taking large amounts of synthetic vitamins.

They could have studied people eating a low fat / high glycemic diet and taking synthetic vitamins.

They could have studied people that all ready had prostate cancer and then started taking vitamins to try to cure it.

You have to remember these people are trying to make it illegal for you to buy vitamins so that all you can buy is prescription drugs. Nothing is below these people. BTW, most of these vitamins - they are happy to sell you prescription versions at 10 or 20 times the cost.

Give it a couple of months and we will find out the true story behind this study.

The study used 300,000 men who reported on their diet, including multivitamin use. Interestingly, there was no increased reports of supplement use and early stage prostate cancer. It was only after tumors appeared that the use of too many multis appeared to affect tumor growth. These men were taking waaaay too many multivitamins.

The cancer 'symptoms' got masked by the multivitamin until it reached a later stage?

I'd be cautious about actually taking anything from this study. Bad diet plus taking multi's happens quite a lot. A good diet and supplements is optimal.

I agree with Whoa ?!?! I better get a doctor's appointment - something must be seriously wrong with me :-)

That could very well be the case - people think that instead of making changes in eating and exercise habits -- all they need to do is take some cheap synthetic vitamins.

Sure hope it wasn't my tax dollars paying for that.

Men who are old enough to get prostate cancer are old enough to have smoked for a considerable segment of their life, and there's not a word in there about smoking history.

Similarly, they are calling "heavy" users people who take more than 5 supplement tablets a week, regardless of what the dose recommendation is on the particular brand.

Sigh.