Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Cancer, Could Vitamin B6 Help?

By David Morris


48% lower risk of being diagnosed with bowel cancer for people with highest levels of vitamin B6...

In the USA bowel cancer is the second biggest cause of deaths from cancer, although it's one cancer that can easily be prevented. New research indicates that in addition to exercise and keeping a healthy weight, vitamin B6 from food sources, could also help prevent bowel cancer.

It's a large study on B6...

Researchers keen to find out exactly what effect vitamin B6 could have in reducing the risks of bowel cancer, examined in depth the results and data from 13 previous studies? And this is what they found:

a. 48% reduction in the risks of bowel cancer, for those people with the highest blood levels of vitamin B6 when compared to those with the lowest vitamin B6 blood levels?

b. The bowel cancer risk was reduced by 20% for those people who were eating the most vitamin B6, compared to people eating the least B6.

Good news, but

While these results are encouraging, because this was just a review study, examining 13 previous studies, there are some weaknesses in the conclusions.

To start with, while two of the studies examined both food and supplement sources for vitamin B6, 11 of them examined food sources, as such no definitive conclusions could be drawn on whether it's better taking vitamin B6 from food, or supplements to cut the risks of bowel cancer.

Secondly, this type of review study doesn't show cause and effect. Instead, it shows an association between levels of B6 and the risks of bowel cancer. And while common sense would indicate a link between the two, these results do not prove one. For that, further research is required.

Getting enough vitamin B6

The possible benefits of taking enough vitamin B6 from foods have been shown in the results of this study. Good sources of vitamin B6 include super foods, such as: organic wheatgrass powder, organic maca powder, spirulina and barley grass. (JAMA 2010; 303:1077-83;)




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