The director of Drug Evaluation for the FDA, Robert Temple:
"My basic rule is that if the relative risk isn't at least 3 or 4 [3.0 or 4.0] forget it."

This study shows a risk increase of 1.05-1.28!!

The 28% increase was just the largest number they could come up with to put into the press release!!

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For many years health authorities have told us that vitamins protected against LC and many smokers started taking them for that purpose.

Now, they say that people who take daily supplements of vitamin E have a higher risk of developing lung cancer and the effect was most prominent in current smokers.

Probably a higher % of smokers take vit E than do non-smokers.

Now they find that of the people that took vit E and got LC, there are more smokers? WELL DUH!!

http://john-ray.blogspot.com/

What the press release saysbold and color are mine)

People who take daily supplements of vitamin E have a higher risk of developing lung cancer, according to one of the largest studies into vitamins and health ever attempted.

Doctors monitored the well being of more than 77,000 men and women over a four-year period and found that a range of vitamins failed to protect against lung cancer, while vitamin E slightly increased the risk of developing the disease.

The study suggested that taking 400mg of vitamin E for 10 years increases the risk of lung cancer by 28%. Taking 100mg of the vitamin each day raised the risk of disease by 7%.

According to Cancer Research UK, the lifetime risk of developing lung cancer is roughly 8% for men and 4% for women. An increase of 28% in that background risk would raise a man's risk to 10% and a woman's to 5%.

Unsurprisingly, the doctors found that lung cancer was strongly correlated with smoking, a family history of the disease and increasing age, but were surprised to find a slight but significant rise in lung cancer linked to vitamin E.

The effect was most prominent in current smokers.

What the actual study says:

http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/content/short/200709-1398OCv1

Long-Term Use of Supplemental Multivitamins, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Folate Does Not Reduce the Risk of Lung Cancer

Christopher G. Slatore1, Alyson J. Littman2,3, David H. Au1,4, Jessie A. Satia5 and Emily White2,6

Methods: Prospective cohort of 77,721 men and women aged 50 - 76 years from Washington State in the VITamins And Lifestyle VITAL study.

Measurements and Main Results: Hazard ratios (HRs) for incident lung cancer according to 10-year average daily use of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, and folate.

A total of 521 cases of lung cancer were identified.

Adjusting for smoking, age, and sex, there was no inverse association with any supplement.
(this means:more supplement causes less cancer)

Supplemental vitamin E was associated with a small increased risk of lung cancer (HR, 1.05 for every 100-mg/d increase in dose; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.00–1.09; P = 0.033).

This risk of supplemental vitamin E was largely confined to current smokers (HR, 1.11 for every 100-mg/d increase).

quote:

Probably a higher % of smokers take vit E than do non-smokers.

I don't know. A few years ago I read that an aspirin a day may protect against lung cancer. Easy prevention I thought...But I still haven't popped one. LOL

That's just me though.