Re: VITAMIN A : Cancer Cure or Cancer Cause?

From the 80's through the early 2000's an increasing number of studies and surveys were linking vitamins such as A, C and E to reduced cancer risk.  In particular it was found that there was an association between much lower risks of cancer and consumption of yellow and orange fruits and vegetables which were high in carotenoids.

Naturally, big pharma could not stand for this.  So they began funding studies designed to say just the opposite, including one cooked up and widely quoted study which recruited heavy smokers and gave them low non-therapeutic doses and synthetic versions of the vitamins.  Surprise, surprise -  their study results came back saying that vitamins not only did nothing to prevent cancer but,in the instance of some vitamins, like vitamin A, they could even make the risk worse.

The message: stay away from vitamins and wait until your genes and body parts caused cancer so we can whack out the offending parts and correct the deficiencies in chemo and radiation.

I note with irony that some recent studies have said that a synthetic (and thus patentable) derivative of Vitamin A shows promise as a "chemopreventive" for cancer.

DQ