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Can dietary beta-carotene materially reduce human cancer rates?

Nature volume 290, pages 201–208 (1981)Cite this article

Abstract

Human cancer risks are inversely correlated with (a) blood retinol and (b) dietary β-carotene. Although retinol in the blood might well be truly protective, this would be of little immediate value without discovery of the important external determinants of blood retinol which (in developed countries) do not include dietary retinol or β-carotene. If dietary β-carotene is truly protective—which could be tested by controlled trials—there are a number of theoretical mechanisms whereby it might act, some of which do not directly involve its ‘provitamin A’ activity.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Imperial Cancer Research Fund Cancer Studies Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, OX2 6HE, UK

    R. Peto

  2. Imperial Cancer Research Fund Cancer Epidemiology Unit, 9 Keble Road, Oxford, OX1 3QG, UK

    R. Doll

  3. Department of Biomathematics, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 2JZ, UK

    J. D. Buckley

  4. Laboratory of Chemoprevention, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, 20205, USA

    M. B. Sporn

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  1. R. Peto
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  3. J. D. Buckley
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  4. M. B. Sporn
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Peto, R., Doll, R., Buckley, J. et al. Can dietary beta-carotene materially reduce human cancer rates?. Nature 290, 201–208 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/290201a0

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