
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 14, 1994                   TAG: 9404140343
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BOSTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

CARROTS GOOD FOR YOU, BUT NOT MAGICAL

Clean up your plate. Mom's advice is still correct: You really should eat your carrots.

The release of a big study casting doubt on the seemingly awesome powers of beta carotene has led to some understandable confusion. The research found that not only did megadoses of this vitamin found in carrots fail to protect smokers from lung cancer, it actually seemed to increase the risk.

Not even the people who conducted the 10-year, $43 million study are sure what to make of it. But one thing seems clear: Carrots, broccoli and other foods rich in beta carotene are surely good for you.

And while vitamin pills are not proven to be harmful, the study published in Wednesday's New England Journal of Medicine does nothing to support the exuberant claims made about them, either.

"This is very specific to pills. All of the studies that preceded this that looked at foods showed no suggestion of harm," said Kara Smigel, a dietician and spokeswoman for the National Cancer Institute.

"We are worried about headlines that say, `Carrots Are Bad for You,'" she said. "That's exactly what we do not want people to hear from us."

In recent years, though, many people have turned to vitamin pills to boost their daily intake of beta carotene and other nutrients found in much smaller levels in a healthy diet.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition, a vitamin maker trade group, says use of beta carotene pills has doubled in the past three years. About 5 percent of U.S. adults now take the supplements.

The latest study is the first in a well-fed Western country to look at the long-term effects of high doses of beta carotene. In this project, 29,133 older male smokers who lived in Finland took beta carotene capsules, vitamin E or dummy pills for five to eight years.

When it was done, the beta carotene users had 18 percent more lung cancer than did the others.

Beta carotene is one of a class of nutrients, including vitamins C and E, that are thought to protect against cancer and perhaps heart disease by soaking up dangerous oxygen molecules called free radicals.

by CNB