Health Update: Vitamin myth

CLAIMS that anti-oxidant vitamins such as beta-carotene and vitamin E might help to prevent cancer and heart disease should be viewed with scepticism, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, which has published the results of a study involving 29,000 male smokers. It found that there was a higher incidence of lung cancer among men who took beta- carotene than among those who did not. Anti-oxidant vitamins may have harmful as well as beneficial effects, says the study from the National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland.