Research In Brief
This article was originally published in The Tan Sheet
Executive Summary
Folic acid & colon cancer: Individuals with a family history of colon cancer "who use multivitamin supplements for >5 years may decrease their risk of colon cancer by almost 50%," researchers report in the March Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Charles Fuchs, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, et al., suggest "the influence of multivitamin supplements on the familial risk of colorectal cancer appears to principally reflect the folic acid content of multivitamins." Researchers found that among women who reported a family history of colon cancer, those who consumed more than 400 mcg folate per day were 52% less likely to have colon cancer than women who consumed 200 mcg or less per day. Fuchs et al. analyzed food frequency questionnaires and medical records of 88,758 women from the Nurses' Health Study...