The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7189 p349-354
16 March 2002

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Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention (cebp.aacrjournals.org)

Vitamins could halve colon cancer risk in those with family history

Individuals with a family history of colorectal cancer could halve their risk of developing the disease by using multivitamin supplements, say American researchers. Previous studies have shown that people with a parent or sibling diagnosed with colorectal cancer have a two-fold risk of developing the disease.

Dr Charles Fuchs, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and colleagues looked at the family-health histories and dietary habits of 88,758 nurses who were taking part in the Nurses Health Study. The researchers focused on behaviours known to be associated with colorectal cancer to determine whether any were helpful or harmful in people with a family history of the disease.

They found that a diet high in folic acid, high in methionine, and low in alcohol intake, when followed for five years or more, reduced the risk of colorectal cancer among women with a family history of the disease. Among those who reported multivitamin use, the relative risk for those with a family history was 0.48 (95 per cent confidence interval, 0.28–0.83). The risk among those without a family history was 0.84 (0.68–1.03). "The influence of multivitamin supplements on the familial risk of colorectal cancer appears to principally reflect the folic acid content of multivitamins," the researchers add.

They comment that folic acid and methionine are important factors in DNA methylation and that alcohol antagonises methylation pathways. "The interactions ... suggest that individuals with a family history of colorectal cancer are more susceptible to dietary methyl deficiency, possibly as a result of aberrations in DNA methylation or DNA repair," they say. The study is published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention (2002;11:227).