One form of vitamin E appears to offer protection against development of bladder cancer, while a second form has no beneficial effect, say a team of researchers led by The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. These findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. In a five-year study, which included 468 newly diagnosed bladder cancer patients and 534 cancer-free controls, the researchers found that high dietary intake of alpha-tocopherol, one form of vitamin E, significantly reduced the risk of developing bladder cancer. But gamma-tocopherol, which is consumed in greater amounts than alpha-tocopherol in the United States, offered no protection, say the researchers, led by Xifeng Wu, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at M. D. Anderson, and including nutritionists from Texas Woman’s University as well as epidemiologists from M. D. Anderson.
