Multivitamins & Cancer Treatment

The question of whether a patient should take vitamins comes up frequently in our clinics. Through this simple question, the patient is often truly asking two more important questions:

1) Can I or should I take vitamins with my cancer treatment?

2) Will taking multivitamins protect me from dying of cancer?

At the end of March, a study was published by a team of researchers who looked at the vitamin using habits of more than 82,000 men and nearly 100,000 women who were an average of 60 years old. They tracked them over the next 11 years to see how many died and from what causes. Cancer claimed about five out of 100 lives from both the vitamin users and the non-users.

The multivitamins didn’t seem to protect users from cancer in general or, specifically, from cancers of the lung, colon, rectum, prostate, or breast. So currently it seems daily multivitamin use provides no benefit; however, the study also did find that taking multivitamins did not cause harm.

But what about taking vitamins, or specifically multivitamins, with cancer treatments?

There is no clear-cut answer.

If you are undergoing cancer treatment and want to take vitamin supplements, speak with your physician and healthcare team, including your pharmacist, to insure you are not taking something that has potential to interfere with your cancer treatments and other medications.

If available, speak with a Registered Dietitian who can discuss the following reasons you may want to consider a supplement as well:

• Are you a vegetarian or vegan? Leaving meat, fish, and poultry out of your diet may require supplementation of some vitamins depending on other foods that you eat.
• Do you avoid dairy products? Milk, cheese, and yogurt are our richest sources of calcium. If you do not include these foods, a calcium supplement may be necessary depending on other foods in your diet.
• Do you eat breakfast cereal or drink vitamin fortified shakes daily (i.e. Ensure®)? Some cereals and shakes are now fortified with 25%-100% of the recommended daily intake of vitamins and minerals.
• Is your food intake limited due to a medical condition? If you are eating less due to cancer treatments, you may not meet your entire vitamin and mineral needs.