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Vitamins During Pregnancy May Lower Risk Of Pediatric Cancer ...
A Canadian study has once again shown that women who take vitamins during pregnancy may lower the risk of their child developing Pediatric Cancer ...
The study was a review of numerous studies by Dr. G. Koren, from the University of Toronto, and colleagues, who found that taking a multivitamin prior to and in early pregnancy reduced the risk of childhood leukemia by as much as 36 percent.
Use of prenatal vitamins also resulted in a 47 percent reduction in risk of neuroblastoma, a malignant tumor occurring in nerve tissue, and a 27 percent decline in childhood brain tumors.
"Based on these data, one can estimate that maternal multivitamin supplementation may prevent 900 cases of pediatric leukemia and 300-400 cases of pediatric brain tumors annually in the United States," the researchers are cited as writing in the May 2007 issue of journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics.
However, many studies provided a statistical association only between use of prenatal vitamins and the lower risk of pediatric cancer. Other possible factors may be involved in the association. For instance, those who take vitamins prior to and during pregnancy may follow a generally healthy lifestyle, which overall benefits their children.
The researchers suspect that folic-acid containing multivitamins may be in particular responsible for the decrease in the pediatric cancers, but they acknowledge that no data could point to a specific factor that might provide the protective effects.
In conclusion, they write: "Given that women who are considering pregnancy are generally advised to supplement with folic acid, the results from this study suggest that supplementation with a folic acid-containing multivitamin may be a preferred method."
Similar results were published by the same authors in the Feb. issue of the same medical journal.
Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer, accounting for 25 to 35 percent of new pediatric cancer cases each year. Brain and spinal tumors are the second most common pediatric cancer, accounting for 17 per cent of new pediatric cancer cases each year, and neuroblastoma affects 6,000 to 7,000 children in North America, mostly children under the age of five years.
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