Multivitamin Use Linked to Lowered Cancer Risk

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/18/health/daily-multivitamin-may-reduce-cancer-risk-clinical-trial-finds.html?_r=0


Summary: Through a large clinical trial of nearly 15,000 male adult doctors, followed for more than a decade, researchers have found that taking a daily multivitamin can in fact lower your chance of getting cancer. Of the total amount of doctors involved in this clinical trial, those who took a daily vitamin experienced 8% fewer doctors with cancer, compared to the subjects taking "dummy" or fake pills. Usually clinical studies similar to this focus on giving the subjects high doses of specific vitamins, but this study dealt with the basic daily multivitamin. This study was a randomized double-blinded trial, considerably one of the most rigorous and in-depth clinical trial involving vitamin linked cancer reduction to date. These findings were reported at an American Association for Cancer Research conference on cancer prevention, and were also published online in The Journal of the American Medical Association. The results are as follows: The amount of fewer cancers reported in doctors taking a multivitamin daily was small but statistically significant. Having said this, taking a multivitamin is only a modest way of reducing cancer, and is not as effective as other means of preventing cancer, such as wearing sunscreen and quitting smoking. Dr. J. Michael Gaziano, the study's main author, recognized that other measures are more likely to prevent cancer as taking a daily multivitamin. In conclusion, taking a multivitamin is healthy and does reduced the risk of getting cancer, but only moderately, and there are more measures that are more likely to prevent or reduce cancer.

Connections: This article directly relates to our studies of cell division. Cancer is a disease caused by the disruption of the cell cycle, specifically cell growth. It is caused when damaged cells divide uncontrollably to form lumps or masses of tissue called tumors (except leukemia). These tumors then interfere with the digestive, nervous, and circulatory systems, which are all necessary in bodily function. In this way, the article, which talks about cancer reduction,  relates to our study of life, including cell processes and cell division.