Phytotherapy and Nutritional Supplements on Breast Cancer 用于乳腺癌治疗的植物疗法和营养补充剂

4.1. Multivitamins

Generally, cancer patients have an augmented requirement for essential nutrients (e.g., vitamins, trace elements, and minerals) adequate levels of which are achieved with the supplementation products. This is particularly true before or during cancer destructive therapies for supporting their side effects better.

However, multivitamin supplements are usually a heterogeneous group of products with no standard composition that depends on the manufacturer, year of production, and batches [104, 106]. In the Swedish Mammography prospective cohort study, Larsson and collaborators highlighted an increase in the risk of developing breast cancer both for high frequency of consumption (19%) and for long duration of multivitamin supplementation (22%) [105].

Until now, no randomized trials have evaluated the outcomes of multivitamin supplementation on the toxicity or survival rate after breast cancer diagnostic [383]. However, Kwan and collaborators conducted an observational study in which 72% of women with early-stage breast cancer were self-prescribing multivitamins and reported neither beneficial nor harmful effects of these supplements on toxicity or survival [113]. Similar conclusions were found by Wassertheil-Smoller and collaborators in US postmenopausal women with invasive breast cancer [111]. However, other authors did not find any association of consumption of multivitamins and breast cancer risk [106, 107].