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Page 1 of 2  About a third of American adults take some type of multivitamin regularly. In nearly every case, the goal is better health, although some experts can’t find evidence to back this up.
The absence of benefit is one thing, but the presence of harm is another. Researchers said this year in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that multivitamins may increase the risk of prostate cancer in men. When scientists further explored this finding, they unearthed no link between multivitamin use and risk of developing localized prostate cancer; that is, cancer confined to the gland. But they did find that men who take multivitamins more than once a day were 32 percent more likely to develop advanced prostate cancer and 98 percent more likely to die from the disease, according to the latest Harvard Men’s Health Watch.
Throw out your vitamins? However, the study didn’t set out to prove that multivitamins actually caused cancer and didn’t pinpoint which multivitamins—and there are plenty of them—were taken. Moreover, other studies have shown no connection between prostate cancer and multivitamins. Faced with contradictory information, scientists know they need more studies, and several projects are already under way to clear up the confusion, if that is indeed possible with such a baffling condition as prostate cancer. Meanwhile, what should men do? Harvard Men’s Health Watch suggests that a good diet and other lifestyle changes, such as losing weight and exercising more, may help lower your prostate cancer risk. As for vitamins, the new study cautions against excessive multivitamin use, but it does not show harm from a daily supplement that sticks to the recommended daily amounts of the standard vitamins. Above all, the new study adds to the growing body of evidence that tells us not to count on supplements. The ‘sunshine vitamin’ and prostate cancer? And from the Get a Load of This Department: men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer during the summer and fall are more likely to survive than men diagnosed in the spring and winter, the Portland Oregonian newspaper reported. The findings come from researchers in Norway and Oregon, who believe the difference in seasonal survival rates comes from exposure to sunlight that increases the protective effort of vitamin D, known as the “sunshine vitamin.” The project involved 46,000 prostate cancer patients in Norway who were tracked from 1964 to 1992. Men diagnosed in the summer and fall were 20 percent less likely to die from prostate cancer within three years compared with men who got the news during winter and spring, according to The Prostate, a medical journal. But, the newspaper reported, Dr. Tomasz Beer, one of the rsearchers from Oregon Health & Science University's Cancer Institute, said the findings don’t prove vitamin D is the determining factor. Like researchers in every other medical study, he called for more study. More kudos to D This isn’t the first time that vitamin D has entered the cancer discussions. In 1980, researchers at the University of California, San Diego, said cancer death rates were significantly lower in the southern United States where sunlight is the greatest than in the North. What’s more, scientists throughout the world say that sunlight’s increasing vitamin D may slash the risk of 17 different types of cancer. For instance, researchers at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., said earlier this summer that women can lower their risk of breast cancer by boosting their vitamin D intake. But an American Cancer Society spokeswoman urged caution in interpreting the findings, saying it was premature to recommend taking vitamins to reduce cancer risk. On Nubella, I’ve written about the purported overall health benefits of vitamin D, but health experts warn that you shouldn’t spend all day soaking up the rays just to soak up vitamin D’s benefits. There is such a thing as skin cancer, you know, that’s caused by the sun’s rays.
Just to be on the safe side, experts advise, boost your vitamin D intake through dietary means. And you won’t have to look far to find incredible sources of vitamin D.
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