Do multivitamins increase prostate cancer risk in older men?

Taking multivitamins regularly or for a long duration neither heightens nor reduces the risk of overall or aggressive prostate cancer among older, generally well-nourished men, results of a study have shown.

A team of investigators followed 48,137 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study from 1986 to 2017. Multivitamin use and frequency were self-reported at baseline and updated biennially. Clinical features of prostate cancer included lethal, advanced, and high-grade outcomes.

In addition, the investigators estimated multivariable hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 percent confidence intervals (CIs) of multivitamin use and incidence of prostate cancer using Cox proportional hazards models.

Overall, 7,108 incident prostate cancer cases, including 1,065 lethal and 564 advanced, were documented over a median follow-up of 30.7 years among men without prostate cancer diagnosis or death. A null association was observed between multivitamin use and prostate cancer risk.

Men who used 10 or more multivitamin tablets per week had similar risk of advanced (HR, 1.14, 95 percent CI, 0.77‒1.70; p_trend=0.46) or lethal (HR, 1.07, 95 percent CI, 0.80‒1.44; p_trend=0.59) prostate cancer compared with never users.

Furthermore, using multivitamins for 15 years or more did not result in an increased risk of advanced (HR, 1.10, 95 percent CI, 0.80‒1.50; p_trend=0.46) or lethal (HR, 1.04, 95 percent CI, 0.83‒1.31; p_trend=0.13) prostate cancer.

“Multivitamin supplement is commonly used among older adults in the United States,” the investigators said.