{"id":33816,"date":"2020-03-05T12:17:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T12:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cupblog.bluefusesystems.com\/?p=33816"},"modified":"2020-03-11T15:08:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T15:08:27","slug":"vitamins-c-and-e-may-influence-%ce%b2-carotenes-effect-on-mortality-in-male-smokers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2020\/03\/05\/vitamins-c-and-e-may-influence-%ce%b2-carotenes-effect-on-mortality-in-male-smokers\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitamins C and E may influence \u03b2-carotene\u2019s effect on mortality in male smokers"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The effect of \u03b2-carotene supplementation on total mortality in male smokers depends on the smoking background and on the levels of vitamin C and E intakes according to a study published in Journal of Nutrition Science,<\/a> <\/em>read the article here.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An earlier, influential and highly-cited meta-analysis on diverse antioxidants pooled the results of 47 randomized trials and had calculated that antioxidants increased total mortality by 5% (JAMA 2007;297:842). However, antioxidants are a very heterogeneous group and there is no justification to consider that all antioxidants are so similar as to justify a statement that the 5% effect is valid for every antioxidant across-the-board. Instead, different antioxidants should be studied separately, and even for any single antioxidant, it is unlikely that there will be a uniform effect that applies to all people worldwide.<\/p>\n

Previously, the effect of \u03b2-carotene supplementation on pneumonia was shown to vary over the large-scale Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene (ATBC) Study on 29,133 Finnish male smokers. Among those men who started to smoke at the age of 21 years or over, and smoked 21 cigarettes\/day or more, \u03b2-carotene supplement increased the risk of pneumonia by 4-fold. However, this subgroup covered only 7% of the study participants. \u03b2-Carotene did not influence the risk of pneumonia in the remaining 93% of the study participants.<\/p>\n

Dr. Harri Hemil\u00e4 from the University of Helsinki, Finland, hypothesized that the effect of \u03b2-carotene on total mortality may be most prominent in the same subgroup of the ATBC Study in which it increased the risk of pneumonia. Consistent with this hypothesis, \u03b2-carotene increased mortality in the same subgroup by 56%. Within this subgroup, there was strong evidence of further heterogeneity, which indicated that vitamin C and vitamin E modified the effect of \u03b2-carotene supplementation.<\/p>\n

The 20 mg per day dose of \u03b2-carotene used in the ATBC Study was particularly large as it increased the serum \u03b2-carotene level 17-fold compared with the baseline levels. Evidently, much less harm would be expected from much lower \u03b2-carotene doses that do not cause such great increases in serum \u03b2-carotene levels. In addition, the observed interactions between \u03b2-carotene and vitamins C and E should not be extrapolated to the general population, because the interaction was seen in a small subgroup of the study population.<\/p>\n

The global market of \u03b2-carotene is a billion-dollar business. \u03b2-Carotene is available as single nutrient supplement and it is also included in various multivitamin supplement combinations. Further research on the potential harms from \u03b2-carotene supplementation is justified so that the specific groups of people who might be at risk of the harm can be instructed to avoid high-dose supplementation.<\/p>\n

The heterogeneity of the \u03b2-carotene effect on mortality found in Hemil\u00e4\u2019s study is a strong counterargument to the earlier influential meta-analysis published in 2007 that pooled diverse antioxidants into the one single 5% effect, and which assumed that the single effect applies to all antioxidants.<\/p>\n

Dr Hemil\u00e4 concludes that \u201cseveral controlled trials have indicated that the administration of vitamin E and vitamin C may be beneficial in certain special contexts. The clinical importance of those findings is not clear. However, those findings should not be dismissed on the basis that a decade-old meta-analysis erroneously claimed that all antioxidants increase mortality on average by 5%. Smokers should avoid high doses of \u03b2-carotene.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The effect of \u03b2-carotene supplementation on total mortality in male smokers depends on the smoking background and on the levels of vitamin C and E intakes according to a study published in Journal of Nutrition Science, read the article here. An earlier, influential and highly-cited meta-analysis on diverse antioxidants pooled the results of 47 randomized […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":821,"featured_media":33930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2467],"tags":[1736,195,213],"coauthors":[7115],"class_list":["post-33816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nutrition","tag-journal-of-nutritional-science","tag-nutrition-society","tag-society"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/821"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33816"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=33816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}