Study of mice suggests people with lung cancer or at risk for the disease should avoid these supplements.
By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Smokers and other people at high risk for lung cancer could make matters worse if they take antioxidant supplements, a new study of rodents suggests.

Antioxidants appear to accelerate cancer progression by short-circuiting one of the body's key immune responses to malignant cells, researchers from Sweden report.

Normal doses of vitamin E and smaller doses of the antioxidant supplement acetylcysteine increased the growth of tumors in mice with early lung cancer, the researchers reported in the Jan. 29 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

"We found that antioxidants caused a threefold increase in the number of tumors, and caused tumors to become more aggressive," senior author Dr. Martin Bergo said during a Tuesday news conference. "Antioxidants caused the mice to die twice as fast, and the effect was dose-dependent. If we gave a small dose, tumors grew a little. If we gave a high dose, tumors grew a lot."