Multivitamin makers are cheering a 13-year study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found men who took Pfizer’s Centrum showed a reduced cancer risk of eight percent.
“This study suggests, at least for men, that there might be benefits to taking multivitamins in terms of cancer as well,” said John Michael Gaziano, M.D., chief of the division of aging at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a researcher at VA Boston who headed the study, which is drawing significant media interest.
Pfizer Consumer Healthcare and agency Ketchum are jumping on the study, which used its Centrum Silver multivitamin.
The PR victory for Pfizer came just months after the company removed claims related to breast and colon health on advertising and labels for Centrum products, after pressure by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
The new study, published Oct. 17 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, saw researchers track 14,641 men, all doctors, from 1997-2011, finding “daily multivitamin supplementation modestly but significantly reduced the risk of total cancer.”
“We’re very encouraged about the positive news coming out of the Physicians Health Study about multivitamins and we’re honored that Centrum multivitamin was the one chose to be part of the study,” said Rowena Pullan, VP for Pfizer Consumer Healthcare.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
The Council for Responsible Nutrition, the trade group for dietary supplement makers, said the study is a key endorsement for its members’ products. Duffy MacKay, VP of scientific and regulatory affairs, added that the study “pushes the door and the windows wide open to the benefits and safety of multivitamins.”
The findings are
being presented this week at the 11th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research in Anaheim.