Tom Murphy
RedwoodAge.com

Ah, the good old days, when Linus Pauling hailed massive doses of vitamin C as the answer to everything from the common cold to cancer.

No more. Several recent major studies have concluded there's no connection between vitamin C - or vitamin E, for that matter - and cancer, heart disease or prostate health. Worse, there are hints that vitamin E and some other supplements may be making things worse.

The head-snapping change of tone has left many consumers confused about whether to take them or not - a decision that ultimately must be made individually in discussions with health professionals. Some experts, for example, believe the vitamins are effective when obtained naturally through foods, but not through a pill.

About 12 percent of Americans take supplements of C and E.

"Antioxidants, which include vitamin C and vitamin E, have been shown as a group to have potential benefit," Howard Sesso of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston told the AP. But he said neither has been studied long enough on its own to determine what that benefit is, if any.

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 prostate cancer and of total cancer were similar among all four groups.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and several vitamin makers. Results were being reported at an American Association for Cancer Research conference in Washington.

"Well-conducted clinical trials such as this are rapidly closing the door on the hope that common vitamin supplements may protect against cancer," said Marji McCullough, nutrition chief at the American Cancer Society. "It's still possible that some benefit exists for subgroups that couldn't be measured, but the overall results are certainly discouraging.

"The American Cancer Society recommends getting these and other nutrients by eating a mostly plant-based diet with a variety of vegetables, fruits and whole grains. A bonus is that this type of diet helps to prevent obesity, which increases the risk of several cancers."

The new study does not mean these vitamins have no value, just that they didn't prevent cancer in this group of doctors, who may be healthier than the general population, said Dr. Peter Shields, deputy director of Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The best bet, he said, is to do things that are known to prevent the disease _ eat right, maintain a healthy weight, and exercise.

Earlier Studies
In a separate report just a week ago, scientists said data from the same study showed the vitamins did nothing to prevent heart disease in men. Vitamin E even appeared to raise the risk of bleeding strokes, which is an effect seen in a separate, earlier study.

"In these hard economic times, maybe we can save some money by not buying these supplements," said Dr. Barbara Howard, a nutrition scientist at MedStar Research Institute in Hyattsville, Maryland, which was not involved in the study.

Yet another study found that vitamins B-12 and B-9 (folic acid) did not prevent heart disease either, supporting the results of previous trials. That study involved more than 12,000 heart attack survivors and was led by Dr. Jane Armitage of the University of Oxford in England.

The US government recently halted another study on whether vitamin E and selenium prevent prostate cancer because there was a suggestion they actually increased the risk.

More than 35,000 men over 50 were involved in that study, taking one or both vitamins, or taking dummy pills, for several years. The study, called the SELECT trial, was canceled after an early review of data showed neither supplement prevented cancer. Moreover, slightly more of the men taking vitamin E alone were getting prostate cancer, and slightly more of the selenium takers were getting diabetes, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The AP contributed to this story.