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Vitamins May Make Cancer Less Aggressive - Studies

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Vitamins may not prevent cancer but they could help
make it less aggressive in patients at high risk of the disease, researchers
said Monday.

Several studies presented at a meeting of the American Association for
Cancer Research show supplements -- ranging from ordinary multivitamins to
specially formulated vegetable-based capsules -- slow the course of several
types of cancer.

In 1 study, Dr. Omar Kucuk and colleagues at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer
Institute in Detroit found tomato supplements helped slow prostate cancer in
men diagnosed with the disease.

The supplements, made by LycoRed Natural Products in Beersheva, Israel,
contained lycopene, the chemical that makes tomatoes red.

Lycopene, which survives cooking and is especially concentrated in tomato
sauce and tomato paste, is a known antioxidant and member of the carotenoid
family of nutrients that include beta-carotene and vitamin A. It cancels out
the effects of free radicals, which are charged particles that can roam the
body and damage DNA, leading to cancer.

Kucuk's team studied 30 men aged 60 to 80 who had prostate cancer and were
waiting to have surgery. Half received 30 mg of the supplements a day, and
half received dummy pills.

Their tumors were then examined after surgery.

``The men who took lycopene had lower PSA levels in their tumors,'' Kucuk
said, referring to the prostate-specific antigen that is produced by
prostate cancer cells. PSA not only marks prostate cancer but can also
predict its severity.

Kucuk said the tumors in men who took lycopene were also smaller.

``This shows that lycopene may not only be preventive for prostate cancer
but in the future will play a role in treatment of several types of
cancer,'' Kucuk told a news conference.

The supplements may have been especially potent, Kucuk said, because they
contained only tomato products. He added that other compounds in the
tomatoes, in addition to lycopene, may also have acted on the tumors.

In a second study of 135 patients presented at the conference, Bruce Trock
and colleagues at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.,
found men who took vitamin supplements and later developed different types
of head and neck cancers experienced a less-aggressive form of the disease.

Trock said previous studies had shown 60 percent of men with head and neck
cancers -- which affect heavy smokers and drinkers and especially
African-American men -- have mutations in a gene called p53, which is known
to help control the mechanisms that lead to cancer.

``Those patients who had been regular users of vitamin supplements prior to
the development of disease had a 3-fold reduction in the mutation of p53,''
Trock said.

When doctors checked to see which patients had taken known antioxidants,
such as vitamins A, C and E, the effect was even stronger, with a 4-fold
reduction in the mutations.

These men were known to have unhealthy lifestyles. Although they had taken
vitamins, they were also smokers, drinkers and did other things known to
make a person prone to cancer, such as eating fatty food, few vegetables and
avoiding exercise.

Yet no matter what aspect Trock's group looked at, it seemed the VITAMINS
were the main factor in reducing the mutations.

Having fewer genetic mutations could translate into a milder version of
cancer, Trock said. Other studies have shown the more mutations there are in
p53, the faster the cancer spreads and the less likely the patient is to
survive.
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