Vitamin supplement use and the risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among women and men

The authors examined use of individual supplements of vitamins A, C, and E only and multivitamins in relation to risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in pro spective cohorts of 88,410 women in the Nurses' Health Study (1980-1996), w ith 261 incident cases during 16 years of follow-up, and of 47,336 men in t he Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-1996), with 111 incident case s during 10 years of follow-up. Multivitamin use was associated with a high er risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma among women but not among men; the multiv ariate relative risks for long-term duration (10 or more years) were 1.48 ( 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.01, 2.16) for women and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.45, 1.58) for men. The pooled multivariate relative risk from the two cohorts was 1.18 (95% CI: 0.70, 2.02). Use of individual supplements of vitamins A, C, and E only was not associated with risk among men. An increased risk as sociated with the use of individual supplements of vitamins A, C, and E onl y among women appeared to be secondary to the use of multivitamins by the s ame persons. Because an elevated risk among multivitamin users was not obse rved consistently in the two cohorts and the pooled data were not significa nt, the elevated risk among women may be the result of chance.