Vitamins 'do not cut cancer risk'

Say it ain't so.

"Taking vitamin C or E does not reduce the risk of prostate cancers - or other forms of the disease, two large US studies suggest.

Both trials were set up following some evidence that taking supplements might have a positive effect.

But one study of 35,533 men, and a second of 15,000 doctors, found no evidence that cancer rates were any lower in those taking supplements...

In the first study, researchers from University of Texas and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine gave healthy men either the trace mineral selenium, vitamin E, both or a dummy pill.

The team intended to monitor all the participants for at least seven years but the trial was stopped early because the results were so disappointing...

In the second study, researchers at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital tested the impact of regular vitamin E and C supplements on cancer rates among 14, 641 male doctors.

Over eight years, taking vitamin E had no impact at all on rates of either prostate cancer, or cancer in general. Vitamin C had no significant effect."

How can it be that cancer cannot be stopped/cured with an over-the-counter pill?

"Dr Jodie Moffat, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said: 'There are a lot of studies looking at whether vitamin and mineral supplements can reduce the risk of cancer but many of them, like this one, don't support a link.

'This new research means it is even less likely than we previously thought that supplements can protect against prostate cancer.

'Supplements don't substitute for a healthy diet and some studies have shown that they may actually increase the risk of cancer.'"

Yup.