Which of these three has been associated with increased cancer risk?
Lutein, Lycopene, and Selenium Pills
4.7/5 - (20 votes)
Normally, I wouldn’t spend so much time on one topic, but people are always asking me about supplements. Let’s try three at a time. Lutein, a phytonutrient found in dark green leafy vegetables; lycopene, found in tomatoes; and selenium, a trace mineral found in nuts and whole grains.
Not a single one of these, in pill form, prevented cancer, and one of these three was just found to increase cancer risk when taken in pill form. Which one was worse than just a waste of money, and actually seemed to cause cancer?
It was the lutein pills. There’s no getting around it; we just have to eat our greens, which has thousands of phytonutrients in it.
Drug companies are never going to find the right combination, but they don’t need to, because Mother Nature did it for us.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- M. L. Neuhouser, S.Wassertheil-Smoller, C. Thomson, A. Aragaki, G. L. Anderson, J. A. E. Manson, R. E. Patterson, T. E. Rohan, L. van Horn, J. M. Shikany, et al. Multivitamin use and risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease in the women's health initiative cohorts. Archives of Internal Medicine, 169(3):294, 2009.
- J. A. Satia, A. Littman, C. G. Slatore, J. A. Galanko, and E. White. Long-term use of beta-carotene, retinol, lycopene, and lutein supplements and lung cancer risk: Results from the vitamins and lifestyle (vital) study. Am. J. Epidemiol., 169(7):815{828, 2009.
Normally, I wouldn’t spend so much time on one topic, but people are always asking me about supplements. Let’s try three at a time. Lutein, a phytonutrient found in dark green leafy vegetables; lycopene, found in tomatoes; and selenium, a trace mineral found in nuts and whole grains.
Not a single one of these, in pill form, prevented cancer, and one of these three was just found to increase cancer risk when taken in pill form. Which one was worse than just a waste of money, and actually seemed to cause cancer?
It was the lutein pills. There’s no getting around it; we just have to eat our greens, which has thousands of phytonutrients in it.
Drug companies are never going to find the right combination, but they don’t need to, because Mother Nature did it for us.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- M. L. Neuhouser, S.Wassertheil-Smoller, C. Thomson, A. Aragaki, G. L. Anderson, J. A. E. Manson, R. E. Patterson, T. E. Rohan, L. van Horn, J. M. Shikany, et al. Multivitamin use and risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease in the women's health initiative cohorts. Archives of Internal Medicine, 169(3):294, 2009.
- J. A. Satia, A. Littman, C. G. Slatore, J. A. Galanko, and E. White. Long-term use of beta-carotene, retinol, lycopene, and lutein supplements and lung cancer risk: Results from the vitamins and lifestyle (vital) study. Am. J. Epidemiol., 169(7):815{828, 2009.
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Lutein, Lycopene, and Selenium Pills
LicenseCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Content URLDoctor's Note
For more on the efficacy of pills versus whole foods, check out Treating Asthma With Plants vs. Supplements?
Also see my other videos on vitamin supplements, and check out my other “HHH” videos – Harmful, Harmless, or Helpful? – listed below the post.
For more context, see my associated blog posts: Açaí to Zucchini: antioxidant food rankings; Preserving Vision Through Diet; Soy milk: shake it up! and Are Multivitamins Just a Waste of Money?
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