Lung Cancer Risk May Be Lowered By Vitamin B6 and Methionine

Lung cancer risk may be lowered by vitamin B6 and methionine. This is according to a new study by scientists who studied more than 400,000 people to establish the relation between lung cancer and the amount of vitamin B6 and methionine.

In the study, blood samples were drawn from the participants and analyzed for the levels of vitamin B6 and methionine. Then after adjusting for other variables between the different participants, the study concluded that those people with higher levels of this vitamin B6 and methionine had a lower risk of getting lung cancer.

And this was true even if the participant was a smoker, or even if the participant is still currently a smoker.

“Similar and consistent decreases in risk were observed in never, former, and current smokers.

“The magnitude of risk was also constant with increasing length of follow-up, indicating that the associations were not explained by preclinical disease,” added the authors of the study.

A higher level of vitamin B6 and methionine in the bloodstream was associated with a 50% reduced risk of lung cancer. The reduction in the risk of developing lung cancer is even more dramatically reduced if folate was combined with increased levels of vitamin B6 and methionine, in which case there was found to be a two-thirds reduction in lung cancer risk.

The authors stress that although this study does not prove conclusively that higher amounts of vitamin B6, methionine and folate in the bloodstream were directly responsible for the lower risk of lung cancer, the association was evident so more studies need to be performed to see if there is an optimum level needed for prevention of lung cancer.