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Vitamin E protects against liver cancer
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Eating plenty of vitamin E in your diet may help reduce your risk of liver cancer.
Liver cancer is the third most common cause of cancer death in the world, the fifth most common cancer in men and the seventh most common cancer in women. Almost 85% of cases occur in developing countries, with 54% occurring in China alone. In recent years, experts have conducted several epidemiological studies to examine the relationship between vitamin E intake and liver cancer, but their results have been contradictory.
In the current study, researchers from the Shanghai Cancer Institute and Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, both in China, analyzed data on 132,837 Chinese people who participated in the Shanghai Women's Health Study (1997-2000) and the Shanghai Men's Health Study (2002-2006). Each participant was interviewed to gather information about their dietary habits. They then compared the risk of liver cancer among those who consumed a lot of vitamin E and those who consumed little to no vitamin E.
Participants included 267 liver cancer patients (118 women and 149 men) who were diagnosed with the disease during the study.
The results showed that vitamin E intake, both from food and supplements, was associated with a reduced risk of liver cancer. This association was seen in healthy subjects as well as those with liver cancer or a family history of liver cancer.