Multivitamin use is common among cancer patients. Whether post-diagnostic multivitamin supplementation is beneficial for prostate cancer survival is largely unknown, and some evidence even suggests potential harm.
We prospectively assessed post-diagnostic multivitamin use in relation to prostate cancer survival among 4756 men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer at diagnosis in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2016). Cox regression models were used to evaluate the association between post-diagnostic multivitamin use and frequency and risk of lethal prostate cancer (distant metastases or prostate cancer-specific death) and all-cause mortality.
We observed 438 lethal prostate cancer and 2609 deaths during a median follow-up of 11 years. Compared to non-users, post-diagnostic multivitamin use was not associated with risk of lethal prostate cancer (HR [95% CI], 0.98 [0.74-1.30]) or all-cause mortality (1.00 [0.88-1.12]), after adjustment for potential confounders. Similarly, null associations were observed across various categories of use frequency. Compared to non-users, men who used multivitamins regularly (6-9 tablets/week) after cancer diagnosis had similar risk of lethal prostate cancer (0.96 [0.72-1.28]) and all-cause mortality (0.99 [0.88-1.12]).
We found no evidence that post-diagnostic multivitamin use among men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer was associated with better or worse survival in a well-nourished population.
British journal of cancer. 2024 Mar 15 [Epub ahead of print]
Yiwen Zhang, Konrad H Stopsack, Kana Wu, Mingyang Song, Lorelei A Mucci, Edward Giovannucci
Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. ., Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA., Department of Nutrition, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.