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About a third of American adults take some type of multivitamin on a regular basis. In nearly every case, the goal is better health, even though there is no firm evidence to support this. The absence of benefit is one thing, but the presence of harm is another. Men who take multivitamins have an increased risk of developing prostate cancer, according to a report in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The good news: There is no link between multivitamin use and the risk of developing localized prostate cancer. The bad news: Men who take multivitamins more than once a day are 32 percent more likely to develop advanced prostate cancer and 98 percent more likely to die from the disease. Do note the study has some limitations. Harvard Men's Health Watch cautions that the study was not designed to determine whether multivitamins actually caused cancer, and it did not ascertain which multivitamins were taken. In addition, the results failed to establish a relationship between dose and response. Moreover, other studies have shown no connection between prostate cancer and multivitamins. Faced with this contradictory information, scientists know they need more studies, and several are already under way. Meanwhile, what should you do? Make sure you eat a healthy, well-balanced diet and make other lifestyle changes to help lower your prostate cancer risk. These include regular screening by a physician, eating cooked tomatoes rich in lycopene, having regular sexual activity (including masturbation) and making sure you get enough vitamin D. Go ahead and take a multivitamin supplement, but just once a day. --From the Editors at Netscape | |||||||||||||
When it comes to multivitamins, more is not better. And for men, more has the potential to kill them.
