Download increased vitamin E reduces lung cancer

Vitamin E Prevents Lung Cancer
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 29, 2008
News Media Virtually Silent on Positive Vitamin Research
(OMNS, October 29, 2008) Researchers at the University of Texas Anderson Cancer Center
have found that taking more vitamin E substantially reduces lung cancer. Their new study
shows that people consuming the highest amounts of vitamin E had the greatest benefit.
When they compared persons taking the most vitamin E with those taking the least, there was
a 61% reduction in lung cancer risk. (1)
Lung cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer on earth; over 1.3 million people are
diagnosed with it each year. With medical treatment, survival rates are "consistently poor,"
says Cancer Research UK. Lung cancer kills nearly 1.2 million per year. It accounts for 12%
of all cancers, but results in 18% of all cancer deaths. (2) Anything that can reduce these
dismal facts is important news . . .very important. Yet the mainstream media have virtually
ignored vitamin E's important role as a cancer fighter.
A sixty-one percent reduction in lung cancer with vitamin E? How could the news media
have missed this one?
The news media probably did not miss it: they simply did not report it. They are biased. You
can see for yourself what bias there is. Try a "Google" search for any of the major
newspapers or broadcast media, using the name of the news organization along with the
phrase "vitamin E lung cancer." When you do, you will find that it will quickly bring up
previous items alleging that vitamin E might (somehow) increase cancer risk. You will find
little or nothing at all on how vitamin E prevents cancer. Indeed, the bias is so strong that
even a qualified search for "increased vitamin E reduces lung cancer" will still, and
preferentially, bring up media coverage alleging that vitamin E is harmful. Negative reporting
sells newspapers and pulls in viewing audiences. The old editors' adage must still be true: "If
it bleeds, it leads."
Here's more positive vitamin E cancer research that the media "missed." A study in 2002
looked at patients with colon cancer "who received a daily dose of 750 mg of vitamin E
during a period of 2 weeks. Short-term supplementation with high doses of dietary vitamin E
leads to increased CD4:CD8 ratios and to enhanced capacity by their T cells to produce the T
helper 1 cytokines interleukin 2 and IFN-gamma. In 10 of 12 patients, an increase of 10% or
more (average, 22%) in the number of T cells producing interleukin 2 was seen after 2 weeks
of vitamin E supplementation." The authors concluded that "dietary vitamin E may be used to
improve the immune functions in patients with advanced cancer." That improvement was
achieved in a mere two weeks merits special attention. (3)
Was it on the news? Did you hear about how high doses of vitamin E help cancer patients'
immune systems in only two weeks? Why not? Might the answer possibly have anything to
do with money? One cannot watch television or read a magazine or newspaper without it
being obvious that drug company cash is one of the media's very largest sources of revenue.
Given where their advertising income comes from, it is hardly a big surprise that media
reporting on vitamins is biased. Well-publicized vitamin scares feed the pharmaceutical
industry. Successful reports of safe, inexpensive vitamin therapy do not.
One commentator has observed that pharmaceutical and other "corporations marshal huge
public relations efforts on behalf of their agendas. In the United States the 170,000 public
relations employees whose job it is to manipulate news, public opinion and public policy in
the interests of their clients outnumber news reporters by 40,000." (4) Another commentator
wrote that "Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a news media
watchdog group, told the American Free Press that 60 percent of journalists surveyed by
FAIR admitted that advertisers 'try to change stories (and) there is an overwhelming influence
of corporations and advertisers' on broadcast and print news reporting." (5)
Drug companies don't have any drug that can reduce lung cancer risk by 61%. If they did,
you would have heard all about it in their advertisements. And it would be all over the news.
Positive drug studies get the headlines. Positive vitamin studies rarely do. This is an
enormous public health problem with enormous consequences. A cynic might say that press
and television coverage of a vitamin study tends to be inversely proportionate to the study's
clinical usefulness. Truly valuable research does not scare people; it helps people get well. It
would be difficult to identify anything more helpful than actively reporting the story when a
vitamin is shown to reduce lung cancer by 61%.
The good news about how important high quantities of vitamin E are in combating cancer is
not arising out of nowhere. A US National Library of Medicine MEDLINE search will bring
up over 3,000 studies on the subject, some dating back to 1946. By the early 1950s, research
clearly supported the use of vitamin E against cancer. (6) Before 1960, vitamin E was shown
to reduce the side effects of radiation cancer treatment. (7) In reviewing vitamin E research,
one notes that the high-dose studies got the best results.
Vitamin E is not the sure cure for cancer. It is not certain prevention, either. Stopping
cigarette smoking is essential. But vitamin E is part of the solution, and we need more of it.
An independent panel of physicians and researchers (8) has recently called for increasing the
daily recommended intake for vitamin E to 200 IU. The present US RDA/DRI is a mere 1520 IU/day.
It is time to raise it. A lot.
References:
(1) Mahabir S, Schendel K, Dong YQ, Barrera SL, Spitz MR, Forman MR. Dietary alpha-,
beta-, gamma- and delta-tocopherols in lung cancer risk. Int J Cancer. 2008 Sep
1;123(5):1173-80.
(2) http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/geographic/world/commoncancers/
(3) Malmberg KJ, Lenkei R, Petersson M et al. A short-term dietary supplementation of high
doses of vitamin E increases T helper 1 cytokine production in patients with advanced
colorectal cancer. Clin Cancer Res. 2002 Jun; 8(6):1772-8.
(4) Robbins R. Global problems and the culture of capitalism. Allyn and Bacon, 1999, p 138.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising
(5) Prestage J. Mainstream journalism: Shredding the First Amendment. Online Journal,
November 7, 2002. http://www.globalissues.org/article/160/media-and-advertising
(6) Telford IR. The influence of alpha tocopherol on lung tumors in strain A mice. Tex Rep
Biol Med. 1955;13(3):515-21. Swick RW, Baumann CA, Miller WL Jr, Rumsfeld HW Jr.
Tocopherol in tumor tissues and effects of tocopherol on the development of liver tumors.
Cancer Res. 1951 Dec;11(12):948-53.
(7) Fischer W. [The protective effect of tocopherol against toxic phenomena connected with
the roentgen irradiation of mammary carcinoma.] Munch Med Wochenschr. 1959 Sep
4;101:1487-8. German. Also: Sabatini C, Balli L, Tagliavini R. [Effects of vitamin E and
testosterone in comparisons of skin exposed to high doses of roentgen rays administered by
semi-contact technic.] Riforma Med. 1955 Apr 30;69(18):Suppl, 1-4. Italian. See also:
Graham JB, Graham RM. Enhanced effectiveness of radiotherapy in cancer of the uterine
cervix. Surg Forum. 1953;(38th Congress):332-8.
(8) Doctors say, Raise the RDAs now. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 30,
2007. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v03n10.shtml
For more information:
Many full-text nutrition and vitamin therapy research papers are posted for free access at
http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom .
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