Vitamins ‘do not cut cancer risk’

Vitamin Supplements

Source:  bbcnews.com

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. Both studies feature in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Supplements don’t substitute for a healthy diet and some studies have shown that they may actually increase the risk of cancer
A number of trials had suggested that taking vitamins could cut the risk of certain cancers by boosting levels of beneficial antioxidants which work to minimise damage in the tissues, but the results were mixed. The latest studies set out to come up with more definitive results, by involving large numbers of volunteers.

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.

The researchers found there were no statistically significant differences in the numbers of men who developed prostate cancer in the four groups.

In all cases the proportion of men diagnosed with prostate cancer over a five-year period was 4% to 5%.

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.

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.

PROSTATE CANCER
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men in the UK
Every year in the UK 35,000 men are diagnosed
One man dies every hour of prostate cancer in the UK
African Caribbean men are three times more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men

“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.”

She added that eating a diet high in fruit and vegetables was still the best way to get the required vitamins and minerals.

John Neate, of The Prostate Cancer Charity, described the findings as “disappointing”.

“Diet does seem important in the development of prostate cancer and we recommend reducing the amount of saturated fat eaten, keeping weight under control, and increasing the intake of fruit and vegetables,” he said.

Dr Pamela Mason, scientific advisor to the Health Supplements Information Service, said all three nutrients were essential for human health.

But she added: “Vitamins and trace elements are not intended to be used like drugs. They are intended for health maintenance and for making up dietary gaps in the population.”

Research published earlier this year suggested Vitamin C supplements may substantially reduce the benefit from a wide range of anti-cancer drugs.

Med people shun Med Diet

Overweight rising in region

29 July 2008, Rome – Hailed by experts as keeping people slim, healthy and long-lived, the Mediterranean diet has followers all over the world – but is increasingly disregarded around the Mediterranean.

According to FAO Senior Economist Josef Schmidhuber, over the past 45 years the famed diet revolving around fresh fruit and vegetables has “decayed into a moribund state” in its home area.

With growing affluence the food habits of people in the southern European, North African, and Near East regions, once held up as a model for the rest of the world, have sharply deteriorated, Schmidhuber reports. His findings are contained in a paper presented at a recent workshop organized by the California Mediterranean Consortium of seven US and EU academic institutions on Mediterranean products in the global market.

People on the shores of the Mediterranean have used higher incomes to add a large number of calories from meat and fats to a diet that was traditionally light on animal proteins. What they now eat is “too fat, too salty and too sweet”, Schmidhuber reports.

More calories

In the 40 years to 2002, daily intake in (15-nation) Europe increased from 2960 kcal to 3340 kcal – about 20 percent. But Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta, who started out poorer than the northerners, upped their calorie count by 30 percent.

“Higher calorie intake and lower calorie expenditure have made Greece today the EU member country with the highest average Body Mass Index and the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity,” says Schmidhuber. “Today, three quarters of the Greek population are overweight or obese.”

More than half of the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese populations are overweight too. At the same time there has also been a “vast increase” in the overall calories and glycemic load of the diets in the Near East-North Africa region.

Guzzlers

All EU countries disregard the WHO-FAO recommendation that lipids should account for no more than 30 percent of total Dietary Energy Supply, but Spain, Greece and Italy are all well over that limit and have become the EU’s biggest fat guzzlers.

The country which registered the most dramatic increase was Spain, where fat made up just 25 percent of the diet 40 years ago but now accounts for 40 percent.

Schmidhuber attributes the change in eating habits not only to increased income but to factors such as the rise of supermarkets, changes in food distribution systems, working women having less time to cook, and families eating out more, often in fast-food restaurants. At the same time, calorie needs have declined, people exercise less and they have shifted to a much more sedentary lifestyle.

On the positive side however, he notes Mediterranean people now consume more fruit and vegetables and more olive oil.

But they generally fail to follow the diet which their ancestors devised and which several Mediterranean countries want to be placed on UNESCO’s world heritage list.

News source:  www.fao.org