Vitamin E – a cause for concern?
Editor – The excellent article Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, by authors James Maurice and Pinelopi Manousou and published in Clin Med recently, has reference number 26 attributed to Hepatology rather than Journal of Hepatology. Unfortunately, the reference is to a poster and while it mentions vitamin E and improvement in histological findings it does not mention prostate cancer as referred to in in the present article.1
The literature of vitamin E and prostate cancer is interesting with varying reports. In the Physicians Health Study 11, there was no increase in the incidence of prostate cancer.2
The 1998 study in Finland of 29,133 male smokers who took vitamin E had 32% fewer cases of prostate cancer and 40% fewer prostate cancer-related deaths.3
The SELECT study began in 2001, with enrolments from 400 sites, with enrolments ending in 2004 with 35,000 men divided into different arms. In 2008, the study was prematurely stopped; more cases of prostate in the men taking vitamin E were found but the number was not statistically significant. However, after an additional 18 months of follow-up, subjects had been on vitamin E for 5.5 years and the difference in the incidence of prostate cancer was statistically significant with a 17% increase, in the placebo group 65 prostate cancer cases per 1,000 men versus 76 in the vitamin E group.4
Vitamin E is reported as promoting tumorigenesis in the early stages of cancer evolution;5 hence the concern regarding vitamin E supplementation.
- © Royal College of Physicians 2018. All rights reserved.
References
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- Kowdley KV
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- Wang L
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- Sarre S
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- Njoroge RN
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