Cancer alert over vitamin E
The finding prompted a warning to men to be wary of taking vitamins and other health supplements.
Researchers, attempting to confirm reports that vitamin E and the mineral selenium could prevent prostate cancer, found instead that, in the case of vitamin E, the opposite was true.
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Hide AdOver several years of follow-up studies, it became clear that vitamin E in moderate doses raised the risk of prostate cancer by more than would be expected by chance.
Compared with a placebo, taking 400 international units (I-U) a day increased the rate of prostate cancer detection by 17 per cent.
The findings were reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.