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For smokers who think they're buying insurance against lung cancer by taking vitamins, a new study finds they may want to rethink that choice.
According to researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle who surveyed 77,000 vitamin users, vitamins do not protect against lung cancer. In fact, certain ones can raise the risk.
The higher the dose of vitamin E per day, the higher the risk of developing lung cancer, suggests the study, published in the first March issue of the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine...

The original article can be found at: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/02/29/vitamine-study.html?ref=rss

The original article can found in the Media Doctor archives.

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what we said (Hover the mouse cursor over underlined words for more info)

Does taking Vitamin E protect against developing lung cancer?
That was the question asked in this study which looked at over 70,000 people in Washington state over a six year period. There is much in this study that needed clarification but never received it. This is a study of associations and those who took Vitamin E supplements were found to have a greater risk of small cell lung cancer. There should have been appropriate caveats supplied in reporting this study, such as the data come from an 'association' seen, and not necessarily a causation. People might conclude that Vitamin E causes cancer when in fact that is an erroneous conclusion.. Other important information was left out, including the absolute benefits and risks of vitamin E, the costs of vitamin E supplementation and the potential conflicts of the spokespeople in the article. It is not clear if only smokers were in the study, yet either way the reporter could have at least reminded the reader that the best way to avoid lung cancer is probably to quit smoking

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