Trial reportThe American journal of clinical nutrition2014
Vitamin E and C supplementation and risk of cancer in men: posttrial follow-up in the Physicians' Health Study II randomized trial.
Trial report in The American journal of clinical nutrition, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 10 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 10 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 99 citations in OpenAlex.
- The role of vitamin C in the prevention of pancreatic cancer: a systematic-review.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Pooled it
- What Is the Role of Nutraceutical Products in Cancer Patients? A Systematic Review of Randomized Clinical Trials.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- Vitamin E Intake and Risk of Prostate Cancer: A Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- Vitamin C Intake and Ischemic Stroke.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Pooled it
- Selenium, antioxidants, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2020Pooled it
- Drugs for preventing lung cancer in healthy people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Vitamin intake and pancreatic cancer risk reduction: A meta-analysis of observational studies.Medicine · 2018Pooled it
- Dietary Supplements and Risk of Cause-Specific Death, Cardiovascular Disease, and Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Primary Prevention Trials.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2017Pooled it
- Vitamin C Intake and Pancreatic Cancer Risk: A Meta-Analysis of Published Case-Control and Cohort Studies.PloS one · 2016Pooled it
- Association of vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E and risk of bladder cancer: a dose-response meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2015Pooled it
- Review
- Cancer prevention: past challenges and future directions.Genes and environment : the official journal of the Japanese Environmental Mutagen Society · 2025Review
- Association between vitamin intake and prostate cancer: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Summary of Evidence on Nutritional Management for Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy.Cancer medicine · 2024Review
- Scientific opinion on the tolerable upper intake level for vitamin E.EFSA journal. European Food Safety Authority · 2024Article
- Systematic comparison of Mendelian randomisation studies and randomised controlled trials using electronic databases.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Vitamin E - a scoping review for Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023.Food & nutrition research · 2023Article
- Antioxidant Supplementation in Oxidative Stress-Related Diseases: What Have We Learned from Studies on Alpha-Tocopherol?Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Evaluating Risk: Benefit Ratio of Fat-Soluble Vitamin Supplementation to SARS-CoV-2-Infected Autoimmune and Cancer Patients: Do Vitamin-Drug Interactions Exist?Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Ascorbate as a Bioactive Compound in Cancer Therapy: The Old Classic Strikes Back.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundRecent posttrial analysis of a completed randomized trial found an increased risk of prostate cancer among healthy men taking high-dose vitamin E supplements. Trials that examined the effect of vitamin C supplements on cancer risk are few.
objectiveWe examined whether vitamin E or vitamin C supplementation affects the risk of cancer events during posttrial follow-up of the Physicians' Health Study II.
designBeginning in 1997, a total of 14,641 US male physicians aged ≥50 y were randomly assigned to receive 400 IU of vitamin E every other day, 500 mg of vitamin C daily, or their respective placebos. The vitamin E and vitamin C treatment ended in 2007, and observational follow-up continued through June 2011.
resultsThis study included an additional 356 cases of incident prostate cancer and 771 total cancers that developed during a mean (maximum) of 2.8 (3.8) y of posttrial observation. During an overall mean of 10.3 (13.8) y, there were a total of 1373 incident prostate cancers and 2669 total cancers documented. In comparison with placebo, vitamin E supplementation had no effect on the incidence of prostate cancer (HR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.89, 1.10) or total cancers (HR: 1.02; 95% CI: 0.95, 1.10). There was also no effect of vitamin C supplementation on total cancers (HR: 1.02; 95% CI: 0.94, 1.10) or incident prostate cancer (HR: 1.03; 95% CI: 0.93, 1.15). Neither vitamin E nor vitamin C supplementation had effects on other site-specific cancers overall. Stratification by known cancer risk factors, history of cancer, other randomized treatment, and follow-up time showed no significant interactions.
conclusionIn this large-scale randomized trial in men, vitamin E and C supplementation had no immediate or long-term effects on the risk of total cancers, prostate cancer, or other site-specific cancers.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.