Many recent studies have found that the amount of vitamins in most vitamin pills is way too much and may actually increase rates of cancer and heart disease. After all if there is no way that you can get these larger amounts naturally in food, that should be a warning to you.
This study tried small amounts of vitamins and found that they helped men a little but now women, because women eat better diets. The point is that you do not need large amounts of vitamins but only the amounts you might get if you ate your veggies.
It has been suggested that a low dietary intake of antioxidant vitamins and minerals increases the incidence rate of cardiovascular disease and cancer. To date, however, the published results of randomized, placebo-controlled trials of supplements containing antioxidant nutrients have not provided clear evidence of a beneficial effect. We tested the efficacy of nutritional doses of supplementation with a combination of antioxidant vitamins and minerals in reducing the incidence of cancer and ischemic cardiovascular disease in the general population.
Methods The Supplémentation en Vitamines et Minéraux Antioxydants (SU.VI.MAX) study is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled primary prevention trial. A total of 13 017 French adults (7876 women aged 35-60 years and 5141 men aged 45-60 years) were included. All participants took a single daily capsule of a combination of 120 mg of ascorbic acid, 30 mg of vitamin E, 6 mg of beta carotene, 100 µg of selenium, and 20 mg of zinc, or a placebo. Median follow-up time was 7.5 years.
No major differences were detected between the groups in total cancer incidence (267 [4.1 percent] for the study group vs 295 [4.5 percent] for the placebo group), ischemic cardiovascular disease incidence (134 [2.1 percent] vs 137[2.1percent]), or all-cause mortality (76 [1.2 percent] vs 98 [1.5 percent]). However, a significant interaction between sex and group effects on cancer incidence was found (P = .004). Sex-stratified analysis showed a protective effect of antioxidants in men (relative risk, 0.69 [95 percent confidence interval {CI}, 0.53-0.91]) but not in women (relative risk, 1.04 [95 percent CI, 0.85-1.29]). A similar trend was observed for all-cause mortality (relative risk, 0.63 [95 percent CI, 0.42-0.93] in men vs 1.03 [95 percent CI, 0.64-1.63] in women; P = .11 for interaction).
Conclusions After 7.5 years, low-dose antioxidant supplementation lowered total cancer incidence and all-cause mortality in men but not in women. Supplementation may be effective in men only because of their lower baseline status of certain antioxidants, especially of beta carotene.
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