Vitamin E May Reduce Risk Of Prostate Cancer

Vitamin E appears to significantly reduce the risk for prostate cancer, according to a major international study released Tuesday.

The study - which involved 29,133 white male smokers in Finland - found that those who took 50 milligrams of a form of vitamin E every day for five to eight years were 32 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer and 41 percent less likely to die from the disease.

The report is the first large-scale study to show that giving people a vitamin may reduce their subsequent risk for a major form of cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer among men, and the second-leading cause of male cancer deaths, in the United States. It will strike nearly 184,500 men, and kill 39,200, in 1998, according to the American Cancer Society.

“For the first time, we have this potential for prevention with a relatively easy modification of taking a supplement or potentially modifying diets,” said Demetrius Albanes of the National Cancer Institute, who helped conduct the study. “It’s exciting news.”

Although vitamins have been widely touted as “anti-oxidants” that could have many health benefits, the scientific evidence has been decidedly mixed. For example, the same study previously found that men who took beta carotene, a form of vitamin A, actually appeared more likely to get or die from lung cancer.

Similarly, men in the new study taking beta carotene had more prostate cancer, but it was not “statistically significant” and only occurred among men who drank alcohol.

Albanes and other researchers stressed, however, that the findings need to be confirmed by additional studies that involve nonsmokers and other ethnic groups before recommending that men start regularly taking large amounts of vitamin E.

Vitamin E is considered safe, but Albanes noted that there was some evidence in the new study that it could increase the risk for certain kinds of strokes. Men in the study took three to five times the recommended daily intake of vitamin E.

Vitamin E, which has also been shown to protect against heart disease and perhaps cervical cancer, is found in nuts, whole grains and a variety of oils, including soybean and sunflower oil.