Vitamin E link to prostate cancer risk

Researchers made the discovery after attempting to confirm earlier reports that vitamin E and the mineral selenium could help to prevent prostate cancer.

Instead they found that, in the case of vitamin E, the opposite was true.

Compared with a “dummy” placebo, taking 400 international units of the vitamin a day increased the rate of prostate cancer detection by 17 per cent.

The findings were reported by researchers led by Dr Eric Klein from the Cleveland Clinic in Chicago.