The effect of beta-carotene supplementation on serum vitamin D metabolite concentrations

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 1999 Dec;8(12):1115-6.

Abstract

In the alpha-Tocopherol, beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention (ATBC) study, a large randomized placebo-controlled trial designed to test the cancer prevention effects of alpha-tocopherol (50 mg/day) and beta-carotene (20 mg/day), participants receiving supplemental beta-carotene had significantly higher rates of lung cancer than those not receiving beta-carotene. It has been hypothesized that the supplemental beta-carotene may have interfered with the synthesis of vitamin D and that the resulting lower concentrations of vitamin D contributed to the elevated cancer incidence. We evaluated whether supplementation with beta-carotene altered the serum concentrations of either 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in the ATBC Study, by comparing on-study changes between baseline and follow-up serum samples among 20 randomly selected matched pairs of subjects from the beta-carotene and placebo groups. In a matched-pair analysis, the difference between the changes in both 25-hydroxyvitamin D and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in the beta-carotene supplement and placebo groups were small and statistically nonsignificant. These results provide no evidence that beta-carotene supplementation interferes with the endogenous production of 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D and suggest that it is unlikely that an interaction between supplemental beta-carotene and vitamin D metabolites contributed to the modest increase in lung cancer incidence observed in the ATBC Study.

Publication types

  • Clinical Trial
  • Randomized Controlled Trial
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Age Factors
  • Antioxidants / adverse effects*
  • Drug Interactions
  • Follow-Up Studies
  • Humans
  • Incidence
  • Lung Neoplasms / chemically induced
  • Lung Neoplasms / epidemiology
  • Matched-Pair Analysis
  • Placebos
  • Seasons
  • Statistics, Nonparametric
  • Time Factors
  • Vitamin D / analogs & derivatives*
  • Vitamin D / blood
  • beta Carotene / adverse effects*

Substances

  • Antioxidants
  • Placebos
  • beta Carotene
  • Vitamin D
  • 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D
  • 25-hydroxyvitamin D