BETHESDA, Md.—Supplemental vitamin E did not protect against prostate cancer, but increased consumption of alpha-tocopherol from foods was associated with reduced risk of clinically relevant disease, said researchers from a recent prospective study (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007;16(6):1128–35; DOI: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-06-1071).
Researchers examined the relationship of supplemental vitamin E and dietary intakes of tocopherols to prostate cancer risk among 295,344 men age 50 to 71 (between 1995 to 1996) in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study.
At baseline, participants were cancer-free and completed a questionnaire on diet, supplement use and other factors. Proportional hazards models were used to estimate relative risk and 95 percent confidence intervals of prostate cancer.
During the five-year follow-up, 10,241 incidents of prostate cancer were identified. Supplemental vitamin E intake was not related to prostate cancer risk; however, dietary alpha-tocopherol, the most commonly consumed form of vitamin E in the
