If you have a serious illness, such as cancer, the chances are you’ll want to do anything that might help you beat it. So perhaps it’s not surprising that many women with breast cancer take vitamin supplements, in the belief that they can help with side effects, or even help prevent cancer from coming back.
In fact, a recent survey of women undergoing treatment for breast cancer found that 6 in 10 women were taking antioxidant supplements, and 7 in 10 of those were taking them at high doses.
For many years now, the general assumption has been that antioxidant vitamin supplements (such as vitamin C, vitamin E, beta carotene, and selenium) are good for you. If you’re in good health, the assumption is they’ll help you stay that way. If you’re sick, they’ll help you get better.
But in the last couple of years, these assumptions have been challenged. Antioxidant vitamins don’t seem to offer the protection against conditions like cancer and heart disease that was once hoped. Some antioxidant vitamins (vitamin E, vitamin A, and beta carotene) may even increase the chance of early death.
Concerns have also been raised about whether high-dose antioxidant treatments could actually interfere with the way that cancer treatments work.
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy attack cancer cells in order to stop them from reproducing. Antioxidants may repair the damage to the cells, so it’s possible that the cancer cells simply recover from chemotherapy or radiation and then continue to spread. Although the effects of antioxidants on cancer are uncertain, the usual advice is to avoid them.
What you need to know. If you’re undergoing treatment for cancer, and you want to try alternative treatments or take supplements, talk with your oncologist first. They should be sympathetic to your wishes, but they will be able to tell you whether it could affect your medical treatment.
—Anna Sayburn, patient editor, BMJ Group
ConsumerReportsHealth.org has partnered with The BMJ Group to monitor the latest medical research and assess the evidence to help you decide which news you should use.
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