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The result is a surprise because many studies of individual vitamins have found they don't help prevent chronic diseases and some even seemed to raise the risk of cancer. In the new study, multivitamins cut the chance of developing cancer by 8 percent. That is less effective than a good diet, exercise and not smoking, each of which can lower cancer risk by 20 percent to 30 percent, cancer experts say.
Multivitamins also may have different results in women, younger men or people less healthy than those in this study. "It's a very mild effect and personally I'm not sure it's significant enough to recommend to anyone" although it is promising, said Dr. Ernest Hawk, vice president of cancer prevention at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and formerly of the National Cancer Institute. "At least this doesn't suggest a harm" as some previous studies on single vitamins have, he said.
Hawk reviewed the study for the American Association for Cancer Research, which is meeting in Anaheim, Calif., where the study was to be presented on Wednesday. It also was published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association. About one-third of U.S. adults and as many as half of those over 50 take multivitamins. They are marketed as a kind of insurance policy against bad eating. Yet no government agency recommends their routine use "regardless of the quality of a person's diet," says a fact sheet from the federal Office of Dietary Supplements.
Some fads, such as the antioxidant craze over vitamins A and E and beta-carotene, backfired when studies found more health risk with those supplements, not less. Many of those were single vitamins in larger doses than the "100 percent of daily value" amounts that multivitamins typically contain. Science on vitamins has been skimpy. Most studies have been observational they look at groups of people who do and do not use vitamins, a method that can't give firm conclusions.
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The cells naturally occur in small numbers, but it is hoped injecting huge quantities back into a patient could turbo-charge the immune system. The Japanese research is published in the journal Cell Stem Cell. Experts said the results had exciting potential, but any therapy would need to be shown to be safe. The researchers concentrated on a type of white blood cell known as a cytotoxic T-cell, which can recognise telltale markings of infection or cancer on the surfaces of cells. If a marking is recognised, it launches an attack.
Teams at the University of Tokyo and the Riken Research Centre for Allergy and Immunology used advances in stem cell technology to make more T-cells. One group extracted T-cells which targeted a patient's skin cancer. Another group did the same for HIV. These T-cells were converted into stem cells, which could dramatically increase in number when grown in the laboratory. These were converted back into T-cells which should also have the ability to target the cancer or HIV.
New weapon?
The groups have proved only that they can make these cells, not that they can be safely put back into patients or that if would make a difference to their disease if they did. Dr Hiroshi Kawamoto, who worked on the cancer immune cells at Riken, said: "The next step will be to test whether these T-cells can selectively kill tumour cells, but not other cells in the body. "If they do, these cells might be directly injected into patients for therapy. This could be realized in the not-so-distant future." Dr Hiromitsu Nakauchi from the University of Tokyo said it was "unclear" whether this technique would help in treating HIV and that other infections and cancer may be a better place to start.
'Very exciting'
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This is already the case in the UK and Poland, the Annals of Oncology reports. The rise reflects a surge in the number of women who started smoking in the 1960s and 1970s, the experts say. The lung cancer death rate will continue on its upward trend for the next few years - but with fewer young European women now starting to smoke, it should decrease with time. In 2013, some 82,640 European women will die from lung cancer, while 88,886 will die from breast cancer. And by 2015 the balance will have shifted and lung cancer will take the lead, according to Prof Carlo La Vecchia and colleagues.
European snap shot
They looked at cancer rates for the EU as a whole (27 member states as at 2007) and also in six individual countries - France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK - for all cancers, and, individually, for stomach, intestine, pancreas, lung, prostate, breast, uterus (including cervix) and leukaemias. Figures show that although more and more people are developing cancer - because they are living longer - overall, fewer are dying from the disease. Despite the decline in total cancer deaths, lung cancer death rates continue to rise among women in all EU countries. The number of pancreatic cancer deaths among both men and women also shows no sign of decreasing, largely because there are few effective treatments for this type of cancer.
Prof La Vecchia, of the University of Milan, Italy, said: "This is worrying. It is the single major cancer that does not show any signs of declining in the future, despite fewer people smoking. "Smoking and diabetes account for about a third of cases. But we do not know what causes most of the rest. "But for lung cancer, we expect death rates to start to go down in around 2020 or 2025 now that the new generation of women are smoking less."
Sarah Williams, of Cancer Research UK, said: "It's encouraging to see that overall the rate of people dying from cancer in Europe is predicted to continue falling. "This reflects improvements in what we know about how to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer and shows that through research we are making inroads against the disease. "But deaths from lung cancer in women are still rising, reflecting smoking rates in previous decades, so sadly most of these deaths were avoidable. "These figures underline the importance of reducing the number of people who smoke - both through helping smokers to quit and by introducing plain, standardised packaging to give young people one less reason to start. "Every year 157,000 children in the UK alone, start smoking. We must try to stem that tide."
BBC News - Lung cancer 'overtaking breast cancer in European women'
