Antioxidant Vitamins May Reduce Colon Cancer Risk

Previous studies have shown that dietary supplementation of certain vitamins, such as Vitamins A, C, and E, and folic acid, reduces the risks of colon cancer, likely because of their high anti-oxidant capacities. A team from Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts, USA), has completed a large-scale study that reports strong association between supplementation of Vitamins A, C, and E with lower levels of colon cancer.  Led by Stephanie Smith-Warner, the team assessed data collected from 676,141 men and women involved in 13 separate studies.  The researchers found that total intakes of Vitamins A, C, and E were associated with 24 to 30% lower risk of colon cancer. Writing that: “Multivitamin use was significantly inversely associated with colon cancer risk,” the team concludes that: “Modest inverse associations with vitamin C and E intakes may be due to high correlations with folate intake, which had a similar inverse association with colon cancer.”