Dietary Supplements and Cancer Prevention: Balancing Potential Benefits Against Proven Harms
- Accepted March 12, 2012.
Abstract
Nutritional supplementation is now a
multibillion-dollar industry, and about half of all US adults take
supplements. Supplement
use is fueled in part by the belief that
nutritional supplements can ward off chronic disease, including cancer,
although
several expert committees and organizations have
concluded that there is little to no scientific evidence that
supplements
reduce cancer risk. To the contrary, there is now
evidence that high doses of some supplements increase cancer risk.
Despite
this evidence, marketing claims by the supplement
industry continue to imply anticancer benefits. Insufficient government
regulation of the marketing of dietary supplement
products may continue to result in unsound advice to consumers. Both the
scientific community and government regulators need
to provide clear guidance to the public about the use of dietary
supplements
to lower cancer risk.
