More vitamins pills increase heart disease and cancer, study warns

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Wednesday 22 Apr 2015 - 16:34 Makkah mean time-3-7-1436 Philadelphia, US (IINA) - A review of 20-years of research by a prominent cancer center finds that people who take more than the recommended dosage of vitamins and supplements are at a greater risk for the disease. Dr. Tim Byers, associate director for cancer prevention and control at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, made the statements Monday at the 2015 annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Philadelphia, according to media and medical reports. "We are not sure why this is happening at the molecular level but evidence shows that people who take more dietary supplements than needed tend to have a higher risk of developing cancer," Byers said in a statement released by the agency. Center spokeswoman Erika Matich told the Daily News Byers made the comments after a review of current research of the past two decades. Byers has not released a new report specifically on this topic. Matich stressed that these health products are safe as long as consumers do not exceed the recommended amounts. "The best way to get the nutrients you need is to eat them in real foods with a balanced diet," she said. "More doesn't make it better. Take the recommended dosage." Byers started to examine the benefits of these supplements 20 years ago. Doctors had begun to notice people who eat more fruits and vegetables had a lower risk of the serious illness and he wanted to see if there were similar results with these health products. And after studying thousands of patients over the past decade they discovered more people taking the vitamins got cancer than people taking placebos. "We found that the supplements were actually not beneficial for their health," Byers said. In fact, some people actually got more cancer while on the vitamins He concluded: 'At the end of the day we have discovered that taking extra vitamins and minerals do more harm than good.' SM/IINA