Vitamin Supplements Many Americans see vitamin supplements as a sure bet for wellness, often consuming megadoses. For years, the antioxidant vitamins A, E and C have been thought to protect us from cancer but evidence is increasing that supplements may not be helpful for all cancer patients. Studies of Rudolph Salganik and colleagues from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggest that vitamin E and A may help tumor cells resist chemotherapy and radiation. Dr. Salganik’s studies found that vitamins block a natural housecleaning process called apoptosis, in which a reactive form of oxygen triggers the mass suicide of cancerous cells. The researchers also fear that vitamins may deflect the ability of radiation or chemotherapy to help the cancer cells survive. Last September a study in Cancer Research showed that cancer cells gobble up vitamin C. The study’s author, David Golde, physician in chief of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York said, “One important message is that the tumor has nutritional needs. Why go out of the way to feed the thing?” Dr. Gold believes caution is warranted for now, at least for patients who are undergoing active cancer treatment. For them, he says, “massive supplementation would seem imprudent.” We won’t hear a consensus message from the major cancer centers for a while. Studies to date have involved mice, and their findings may not apply to humans. But they dim the high hopes for antioxidants as cancer slayers. They also reinforce the sobering messages of big human studies in the United States and Finland that found vitamin A, in the form of a beta carotene supplement, actually raised the risk of lung cancer death, especially in men who smoked. Until randomized clinical trials can clarify each vitamins role in different types of cancer, we have the same question: what should patients do? According to Dr. Peter Greenwald, Director of Prevention at the National Cancer Institute, most American don’t suffer gross vitamin deficiencies. “The proven thing,” he said, “is that diet affects cancer risk and cutting down calories, getting plenty of exercise and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables lowers risk.” Dr. Patricia Ganz, a breast cancer specialist at UCLA advises patients to “eat fruits and vegetables the way nature packaged them, rather than large amounts of single vitamins in tablet form.” Exactly which vitamins help or hurt cancer patients with different tumor types will take years to unravel. Let your oncologist know what you are taking while in treatment.
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