New results published online today from the Physicians’ Health Study II (PHS II), showed that participants who took a daily multivitamin for 11 years had 8 percent fewer cancers compared to participants who took a daily placebo. The study is a large randomized controlled trial involving over 14,600 male physicians aged 50 and over.

The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Though the reduction in incidence is relatively small, it is significant, and the PHS II is a large, rigorous and well-respected double-blinded randomized trial. (In the study, one group took a multivitamin and one group took a placebo; neither the subjects nor the doctors knew which was which.) Continue reading →