WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Men who took vitamin E or vitamin C supplements were no more or less likely to develop cancer than men given a placebo, indicating these antioxidants have no cancer-prevention value, US researchers said at the weekend.

Previous research showed that people who ate diets rich in vitamins E and C had a lower risk of cancer, suggesting that supplements of these vitamins might help ward off cancer, the researchers said.

The new study tracked cancer risk in 14,641 male US doctors who took either 400 IU of vitamin E every other day or a placebo, or 500 milligrams of vitamin C daily or a placebo.

Their average age was 64 at the start of the study and they were followed for eight years on average.

Taking the vitamins had no impact on the risk for any type of cancer, Howard Sesso of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and colleagues reported at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

One week ago, Sesso reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that in the same population of men, taking these vitamins also failed to reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease including heart attack and stroke.