Dr Ira Bernstein response to "Antioxidants including vitamin E can promote lung cancer"

By Dr Ira Bernstein

Once again, a group of obscure lab researchers went to the international press last week after publication of their research in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The headlines around the world were as follows: "Antioxidants including vitamin E can promote lung cancer", with calls telling you to stop your multivitamins. But first, let me remind you of my recent article several weeks ago involving high dose vitamin E (2000 IU) in the presence of mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease in a large randomized placebo controlled study demonstrating significant cognitive benefits in the vitamin E arm of the study and no signal for any adverse outcomes including cancer. This was a human study, and well designed.

So, let's go back to the lab in Sweden where researchers took 20 mice and induced lung cancer in them, mice with specific genetic mutations. They then studied the effects of vitamin E and N-acetylcysteine (NAC) on the mice. The NAC was given in the drinking water and the vitamin E in the diet. They were able to study a grand total of 15 mice. 10 weeks after tumor initiation, the mice were sacrificed and they were studied. The scientists noted that there was increased tumor cell proliferation in the vitamin E/NAC fed mice than in the non-supplemented mice.

As a result of these findings on 15 mice, this was apparently enough evidence to go global and give the Swedish researchers a field day from their field mice, which allowed them to create another global scare.

The moral of the story is: If you induce lung cancer in mice who have a specific mutation, think twice before administering exclusively high dose vitamin E and or N-acetylcysteine as these mice may meet their demise sooner than the mice with induced lung cancer who don't take high dose vitamin E and/or N-acetylcysteine. I think it is a far stretch to extrapolate to the human population who do not have lung cancer and are taking balanced nutrients in optimal amounts. I would in any event never recommend a single nutrient supplement on its own anyways (again even though vitamin E by itself is beneficial in Alzheimer's disease with no evidence of increased tumor burden).

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