This article claims High dose if B12 doubles lung cancer in men

[Hamayeshguy]

An article in daily express claiming lung cancer doubles in30 percent of men after ten years of high dose of vitamin B12 and 49 percent in men who take high dose of b6 and in smoker men is four time higher

express.co.uk/life-style/he...

And just 50 mcg is required to be taken on daily basis.

Any comments?

[Hamayeshguy]

There is one more article claiming just smokers or men with smoking history develope lung cancer by taking high dose of B12 and B6 . Because it can feed small rumors yo grow faster

health.harvard.edu/cancer/b...

But this rate us not affecting non smokers or people with no smoking history

[Sammyo23]

Glad I never had any desire to smoke.

[Gambit62 Administrator]

The article is reporting a correlation between supplementation. The science behind it hasn't established a causal link or mechanism.

[wedgewood in reply to Gambit62]

Thanks for your explanation!

[deniseinmilden]

So what if it does - other than it's annoying when the media print sensationalist rubbish just to sell copy!

Reality is that if they were B12 deficient and didn't get any B12 supplementation there's a good chance they'd have died of that well before they had a chance to get cancer!

Yes, having B12 and the supporting nutrition means that your body has the right building blocks to make bad cells as well as good ones so if you are predisposed to cancer it will enable it to grow, but it doesn't cause it in the first place.

In fact low B12 causes high homocysteine and can impair DNA replication which can cause cancer so the fact that they had a higher incidence of cancer was probably due to their deficiency not being treated soon enough.

But, it's irrelevant as far as the article goes, as they'd have died without the B12 anyway.

And no one here is ever suggesting that anyone takes more B12 than they need - there's no point - but you do need enough to get rid of your symptoms, lower your homocysteine and stop making you prone to cancer in the first place!

[wedgewood in reply to deniseinmilden]

Thanks for your post , Well put !

[Nackapan in reply to deniseinmilden]

I tried writing about risk factors and failed Thank you.

Very concise

[helvella]

The express mentions two studies.

Is high vitamin B12 status a cause of lung cancer?

Anouar Fanidi, Robert Carreras-Torres, Tricia L. Larose, Jian-Min Yuan, Victoria L. Stevens, Stephanie J. Weinstein, Demetrius Albanes, Ross Prentice, Mary Pettinger, Qiuyin Cai, … See all authors

First published: 29 November 2018

doi.org/10.1002/ijc.32033

Citations: 26

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...

AND

VITamins And Lifestyle Cohort Study: Study Design and Characteristics of Supplement Users

Emily White, Ruth E. Patterson, Alan R. Kristal, Mark Thornquist, Irena King, Ann L. Shattuck, Ilonka Evans, Jessie Satia-Abouta, Alyson J. Littman, John D. Potter

American Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 159, Issue 1, 1 January 2004, Pages 83–93, doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwh010

Published:

01 January 2004

academic.oup.com/aje/articl...

The first concludes:

Considering the consistency of these two independent and complementary analyses, as well as previously published studies,4,5 these findings support the hypothesis that higher circulating vitamin B12 concentrations increase the risk of lung cancer.

There is a difference between circulating B12 and the amount taken as a supplement.

Even so, publishing the article as if the paper had been published last week is, to say the least, disingenuous.

The article does, though, highlight the massive doses of B6 available which (in my view) are extremely hard to justify. I noticed 250 milligrams of pyridoxine HCl.

[deniseinmilden in reply to helvella]

Thank you for being much more scientific and correct.

I had to go out fairly sharp this morning and didn't have a chance to go into it in any detail.

Very useful, thank you!

[helvella in reply to deniseinmilden]

If everyone contributes a little - we get a lottle.

[deniseinmilden in reply to helvella]

❤️👍

But it's always the outstanding quality of your contributions which makes such a difference! Appreciated, I promise.

[clivealive Forum Support]

I smoked quite heavily in the 1970s until my daughters "persuaded" me to stop and I've been on high dosage of B12 injections every month since 1972 and as far as I am aware I don't have lung cancer and I'm still "clivealive" aged 80.

Oh and I've taken B9 and B6 regularly ever since diagnosed with P.A.

[Hamayeshguy]

This study was done over ten years supplement taking and is not for short period of time taking high dose for treating neuropathy. But just men with smoking habit or smoking history are affected. The reason is B12 and B6 can nurture small cancer tumors to develop faster . But lung cancer is preventable and one of the easiest cancers to cure if it get diagnosed early.I'm man with smoking habit but I have neurological symptoms and I need to keep my symptoms at bay so risk factors worth it to take high dose for short time like one year . But everyday injection. In the meantime it says high dose of cobalamin and pyridoxine high level in blood stream are risk factors just in men but for other people rate is normal. So ladies and non smoker men can still inject without any concern and men with smoking habit or history maybe to evaluate some risk factors for long time high dose injection. But in short time it's not big deal

[Hamayeshguy]

Folic acid also increase lung cancer but in USA for decades folic acid is used for fortification if grains and that's why this study can not be accurate. In the meantime it is just a limited number of questions and not all of the conditions was taken into account. This study just emphasize link between smoking and cancer but in men is lung cancer and in women ovarian cancer.

[helvella in reply to Hamayeshguy]

If there were a risk of lung cancer that is at all dose-related, we'd expect treated Pernicious Anaemia patients to have massively increased rates.

Surely they are an obvious group to research?

[Hamayeshguy in reply to helvella]

This study first off is statistical based and it wasn't large group and secondly just answering predetermined questions can not express all of the conditions. Like in USA and Canada grain fortification with folic acid is mandatory and folic acid also is a risk factors if developing lung cancer in men and ovarian cancer in women! So deep studies are required and this study just emphasize smoking can cause cancer and no new data is fetching out of this study. So taking high dose of B12 not necessarily means can cause cancer in men

[palmier]

Higher circulating b12 is likely to be correlated to eating a lot of meat. Perhaps it has nothing to do with supplements, but an unhealthy diet.