Vitamin E

Also called: alpha-tocopherol.

Last reviewed 2026-09-16. How this works.

When to call your team — there is nothing to watch for

Whatever you are taking or thinking of taking, the people treating you can only weigh it if they know about it. That is true when nothing has been written down here, and it is most true then.

The harm recorded on this page is a raised chance of developing cancer over years. It is not something a person can feel happening, so there are no signs to watch for, and that is the point rather than an omission. What it is a reason for is telling your team what you take.

This block is about what to watch for, and it is not all this page holds: what has been recorded about harm is below. Nothing in this block is an all-clear for a question it does not mention.

Preventing prostate cancer Grade E

Human evidence points the wrong way.

Harm has been recorded in people for this claim. The grade measures how strong the evidence for benefit is; it says nothing about the harm, and the two are read from different parts of this page.

A trial in 35,434 men found more prostate cancers in those given vitamin E than in those given a dummy pill.

SELECT found more prostate cancers in the vitamin E group than on placebo.

The harm

SELECT randomised 35,434 men and followed them for about seven years. There were 76 prostate cancers per 1,000 men in the vitamin E group against 65 per 1,000 on placebo.1

That is a supplement sold in every pharmacy, given to healthy men to prevent a cancer, producing more of that cancer. It is one of four entries in this chapter graded E, and all four are vitamins.1

The claim

The claim was that vitamin E, an antioxidant, would prevent prostate cancer.

What it does

The antioxidant argument is the most intuitive one in nutrition and it has repeatedly failed when tested. The plausible story about free radicals did not survive contact with a randomised trial.

The evidence

There is nothing further to summarise. The trial was large, randomised, and clear, and it ran the wrong way.1

The studies this rests on

  • SELECT, vitamin E and the risk of prostate cancer1

    A randomised trial, double blind, measured a clinical outcome, 35434 participants.

    more prostate cancers in the vitamin E group than on placebo.

    absolute incidence: 76 per 1,000 against 65 per 1,000 over approximately seven years

What to ask

Are any of the supplements I take ones you would want me to stop?

The dish-to-person gap

The register holds no concentration comparison for vitamin E. This entry rests on a randomised outcome trial.

Interactions

The register holds no measured interaction between vitamin E and a cancer treatment class. Chapter 16 of the book covers supplement interactions in general, and an empty list here means nobody has measured this one.

Nobody having looked is not the same as nothing being there. That is what this line says and all it says.

The whole interaction list, and how to turn it into a pharmacy review request.

Find a trial instead

This question was answered by a randomised trial in more than thirty-five thousand men.

References

  1. Klein EA, Thompson IM Jr, Tangen CM, et al. Vitamin E and the risk of prostate cancer: the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT). JAMA 2011;306(14):1549-1556.

    doi:10.1001/jama.2011.1437 · PubMed 21990298

    How this was reached: transcribed from chapter note, via docs/CHAPTER-NOTES.json, chapter 17 note 4. The author string is abbreviated in the source that was read and has not been expanded.