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CANCER
B vitamins may affect rates among older women.
THE QUESTION Are women who take vitamin B supplements less likely to develop cancer?
THIS STUDY analyzed data on 5,442 middle-aged and older women who had been randomly assigned to take a vitamin B supplement (containing B6, B12 and folic acid) or a placebo daily.
During the next seven years, 379 of the women received diagnoses of invasive cancer, meaning their cancer had spread beyond the area where it developed.
Overall, there was virtually no difference in the rate of cancer development between those who had and had not taken B vitamins, nor was there a difference in the occurrence of breast cancer or colorectal cancer.
However, among women 65 and older, those who had taken the supplements were 25 percent less likely to have developed any type of invasive cancer and 38 percent less likely to have developed breast cancer than older women who did not take the vitamins.
WHO MAY BE AFFECTED? Women. Cancer will be diagnosed in an estimated 700,000 women in the United States this year.
CAVEATS The findings may not apply to men. Although the study did not find that B vitamins helped prevent cancer, no increase in risk was found, either.
