Vitamin E Supplements Linked to Lung Cancer
According to a study published in the March issue of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, vitamin E can increase the risk of developing lung cancer. The study used data on 77,126 men and women between the ages 50 and 76 from the Washington State Vitamins and Lifestyle study, examining their rate of lung cancer over four years. 
The increased risk equaled seven percent for every 100 mg a day of vitamin E supplement taken. While the increased risk posed by smoking and age weren’t surprising, the link to vitamin E was.
“In contrast to the often assumed benefits or at least lack of harm, supplemental vitamin E was associated with a small increased risk of lung cancer,” said Dr. Christopher G. Slatore, M.D., of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Using vitamin supplements as a substitute for fruits and vegetables has long been controversial due to their containing not only vitamins, but also phytochemical compounds and other components whose benefits aren’t well understood. “Future studies may focus on other components of fruits and vegetables that may explain the decreased risk [of cancer] that has been associated with fruits and vegetables,” said Dr. Slatore.
Source: American Thoracic Society
- In your opinion, is there any difference between vitamin supplements and vitamins from fruits and vegetables?
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there shouldn’t be any difference between vitamins you get from fruits and vegetables and vitamin taken as supplements. The only difference that you never know what other chemicals the put into the tablet
me taking no vitamins any more.sheeeeeesh
This is propaganda from the WTO trying to control our vitamins. This is all crap.
I don’t take any vitamin supplements. I eat a well-balanced diet and get all the vitamins I need from the food. Those who consume more vitamins than a body can handle, simply have “expensive” urine, b/c the body excretes anything it can’t store
The study is bogus. Everyone knows that the study was based on a few facts from a real study that may have concluded no correlation. Their study then was built into a believable document that looked legit. Vitamins are good for you, fruits and vegetables are the best source, but they have been grown in contaminated soil and then sprayed with other chemicals for pests. Not saying that manmade vitamins don’t have their own issues, but this is laughable. Remember the studies that claimed soap caused skin cancer, milk was dangerous because of the fat content, coffee was a killer? Scare tactics via gov’t agencies who really don’t have any clue about anything, but passing along bogus data from people pretending to be experts.
The main difference between vitamins from food and vitamins from supplements is that the supplements have “decontextualized” vitamins–the phytochemicals found in the fruits and vegetables aren’t in the supplement. Phytochemicals are not *required* like vitamins and minerals, but they do a lot of good things for the body (like behave as antioxidants, or…), and we don’t fully know about or understand all of them. The best way to get your recommended intake of vitamins and minerals is to eat a variety of food, including vegetables and fruit.
Also, Mary K: not all excess Vitamin E will can be excreted as easily because vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble, not water soluble like the rest. It is stored much more easily than water-soluble vitamins in the body, and that is likely why excess dosages can cause problems. (It’s a lot harder to get too much from food that it is from supplements.)
It’s all nonsense to believe every scare article. I’ll continue to take my vitamin E supplements.
I doubt there’s much difference between the two, as both have contaminents somewhere along the process. Vegetables, etc, are all sprayed with many chemicals, and even the organic ones are affected because chemicals are also found in the water to grow them. There may be a higher likelihood of bad vitamins if they are made outside the USA, where there are definitely more chemicals in their environments. Look at China’s toys - lead problems, and China’s toothpaste - having a form of automobile radiator coolant in them.
If ignorance had physical being the earths’ crust would be six miles thicker. When you mix half-baked science, mass media, and a general population barely capable of reading you get…garbage.
the supplements are less desirable tho the pro-supplement crowd will never accept this.
do all you people who gobble supplements have health insurance?
or are supplements your substitute for it?
Correlation does NOT mean causation. This article implies that it does.
I’ve been taking Vitamin E for nearly 39 years. I started taking E and A when I was a teenager to battle my acne problem. I got into the habit then and have never stopped using them. I started taking other vitamins and mineral supplements when I was wealthy enough to afford them. I’m now 53 years old and in excellent health. I’ve never had any problems with my body. Most of my friends continue to have cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other health problems. My father has also taken vitamins for about the same period of time. He turns 80 this year. He smoked from the age of 12 until he finally quit when at 65. He’s had no lung problems of any kind. He did have colon cancer 2 years ago but came through it with no problems except for a smaller colon - he refused to go through chemotherapy and instead increased his vitamin intake. He just recently had a follow up and has no sign of cancer.
The thing that these studies don’t address is how long people have taken these vitamins and how consistant they have been in taking them. I think thiis is an important part of vitamin use. The affects of vitamins are a long term propostion. You can’t start taking vitamins when you’re 60 and expect them to fix a lifetime of bad eating habits. There’s a point where your body has more damage than better nutrition can fix in a couple of months. I’m not suggesting that starting a vitamin regimen late in life is not good but you can’t expect miracules.
I have found that most people that have taken vitamins for years have also eaten a better diet and do some sort of exercising on a regular basis. I think this makes a big difference in not only your general health but it also enhances the amount of good vitamins contribute to your health.
What a crock! Once you understand that all nutrients are not the same this type of disinformation becomes easy to spot. Plant derived nutrients contain something called co-factors, which are vital for the body to absorb
& utilize the nutrients. Big pharma strips all these co-factors out in there studies, so the nutrients aren’t absorbed and can even be harmful. This “half-truth” seeks to frighten the uninformed into conforming to their “poison is the best thing for your immune system” madness. Acording the the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, Vol 284, No. 4 July 26, 2000 “Is US Healthcare Really The Best In The World?”) the US medical system is the 3rd & 4th leading cause of death in the US! They’ve known this for 8 years, but continue to take our money as over 400,000 peole die at their hands each year. Read the article or accept the risk!
Good comments. Few if any get sufficient optimal nutrients from their actual diet. I do have my doubts about the quality of most supplements as well as research and marketing. So we’re back to judgment. The best approach is to eat lots of veggies and fruits AND take targeted supplements without going overboard. They’re not mutually exclusive. I’ll continue to take Vitamin e but at this point will reduce and more closely monitor the total amount. More and more I buy from only a few vendors who take extra steps in quality and a more comprehensive approach to formulation. These include LEF.org, OrganicFrog.com, Vitacost.com.
Of course eating real fruits and vegetables are what our bodies really need. Vitamins are only a money making scheme to sell to people who do not get their vitamins through the food they eat. Eat your veggies and cut out the processed food and meat and you will not need vitamins and be much healthier for it.
We have barely scratched the surface in understanding the engineering of the human body; just enough to solve short term problems and one at a time. Long term effects of combination of things can only be trusted on “history of evolution”. Eat organic fruits and vegetables and use man-made stuff for short-terms solutions only.
I am a structured water and carbon life carrier that needs “clean water and fuel” to continue life, and do it with pure and natural. . but not always…
Of course there is a difference. All compounds have R and S configurations, scientists have yet to find a way to separate these two different compounds. In nature only on configuration exists, but when you try to engineer that compound both configurations end up in the mixture.
Dave S,
I use Consumer Labs to find out which vitamins are the best. I know you’re not going to like this but Life Extension usually rates badly. Consumer Labs is continuously testing all sorts of vitamins, mineral and other nutritional products. They are not affiliated with any supplier. You must have a subscription ($30 a year) to access the test information but it’s well worth it if you take vitamins – it takes the guess work out of the equation.
http://www.consumerlabs.com
This is ridiculous. No research is really even presented in this article. What other lifestyle factors were studied ? This is just another example of a ridiculous assertion about nutritionals and the natural health world that has no basis in fact or even legitimate academic responsibility
A reading of “Pottengers Cats” will also help educate about why our human nutrition and societal health status in this country is so poor.
So did they use dl-aplpha tocopherol or d-alpha tocopherol/dl is a petroleum derivitive????
So what type of vitamin E was used? Big difference in synthetics (dl-Alpha) and Natural E! Like all studies the flaw is in the release of “flawed” studies to panic the non- PHD’s of the world. Steve is right Who really benefits from this poor release of misleading information.
TLC
You read my mind!!!
If the study has to be believed, we have to be concerned about not only our daily food intake but also other drugs we take when we are ill. I want to know 100 mg a day is standardized dose or not. It should be clear that the study is only associated with lung cancer and not with other cancers.
FYI, according to one lengthier article that I read about this study, the increased risk of lung cancer was found ONLY in subjects who were CURRENTLY SMOKERS. This wasn’t mentioned in most articles that I looked at.
So, if you smoke and take vitamin E, please quit smoking. If you smoke and DON’T take vitamin E, please quit smoking.
Who cares about vitamins….what a crock. At 58 yrs old I have never been in the hospital and very seldom get sick. I have never taken vitamins but do eat fruits,etc. Quit wasting your money on vitamins and start eating right.
that’s very interesting article.May be we should rethinkour meal plans and just eat fresh fruits instead of tasteless pills.
To add on to Emmy’s comment, the increased risk also applied to former smokers (but not to the same extent as current smokers). The risk was said to be incredibly slight for both current and former smokers. The figures were adjusted to take family history and environmental factors into account, so it is possible that the 7% increase got even smaller. All the test subjects were white, so the study is limited in even more ways.
I haven’t been able to find any information on other vitamins that the subjects were taking. If they were taking high levels of vitamin E without taking any other supplements, then vitamin deficiencies were being created. This can cause quite a few health problems.
This study made the same error as the previous hundred studies:
supplementing alpha-tocopherol without gamma-tocopherol.
This leads to depletion of serum gamma- and delta-tocopherol concentrations.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14519797
http://www.antiaging.com/white_papers/vitamin_e_jana.html
Also alpha, beta, gamma, delta tocotrienols and beta, delta tocopherols were missing from the Vitamin E supplements used in this study.
What wasn’t mentioned is very important: the TYPE of vitamin E the people in the study were taking.
Synthecized vitamin E is NOT good for anyone, that is the DL-alpha tocopherol found in MOST supplements.
The “L” means it is synthetic. The study that found vitamin E to increase heart attacks also used the dL version. Before the synthetic version came along vitamin E studies ALL came back as showing a DECREASE in heart attacks.
The suppliment companies can use the DL version to keep their costs down and MOST ALL of them use the DL from what I see on the labels
People should take the GAMMA vitamin E that has all of the different properties of vitamin E.
Here’s a good link to better info than I provided: http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=1119&query=Vitamin%20E&hiword=E%20VITAM%20VITAMER%20VITAMERS%20VITAMI%20VITAMINA%20VITAMINAS%20VITAMINC%20VITAMIND%20VITAMINE%20VITAMINEN%20VITAMINES%20VITAMINIC%20VITAMINK%20VITAMINS%20Vitamin%20
I know very little about this study. From my experience, however, most studies are either performed or reported by those with a bias. I especially like the point above that we do not know enough about the study to make any conclusions. In the very least we’d want to know more about the Vitamin E source. For instance, did everybody take the very same Vitamin E? If so, what was the Vitamin E mixed with? All Vitamin E tablets are not created equally.
I’d read about a study with similar results several months back, but it was regarding the C and E interation. Basically finding that vitamin E is the first line of defense in the lungs, but that vitamin C was the first line of defense for that vitamin E.. and if there is an overabundance of E and a shortage of C, the E becomes overdosed in free radicals and starts doing damage. Apologies, I can’t find the link to that research - but it should be searchable.
Without at least 12mg. of Iodine a day even fresh air can cause lung cancer as well as a host of other cancers. It is not what can cause cancer it’s what prevents it that should be of interest. It is also helpful to know who it is that does not want you do get the Iodine you need and why.
I would want to know what particular brands of Vitamin E where used in the study. It maybe related more so to the preservative used in the Vitamin E than the actual Vitamin E itself.
Fresh Fruits and veggies are always better accept for the fact that they have pesticides and there has been quite a lot of genetically modified product out there.
I don’t buy this for a second.
Common sense tells you it’s nonsense. Some man in his 80’s (in good health) wrote to Dr. Donahue asking about vitamin e. The man had taken it for years and Mr. Donahue basically said it was worthless. Who’s the idiot?
There are 8 types of vitamin E. This study was obviously using the synthetic dl-alpha-tocopherol, and not the natural form. I take a full spectrum vitamin E that is sold on the Anti Aging Guide. Here is a lik that talks about synthetic and natural vitamin E It is crazy how all these studies use synthetic vitamins. Nature knows best, and you really should only take natural forms of vitamins
lung cancer can be avoided if you stay out of air pollutants like some chemicals and tobacco smoke.-:.