Randomized, placebo-controlled trial of dietary supplementation of alpha-tocopherol on mutagen sensitivity levels in melanoma patients: a pilot trial.

We evaluated the effects of vitamin E (dl-alpha-tocopherol) on mutagen sensitivity levels in a randomized placebo-controlled pilot trial. In brief, a dietary supplement of 1000 mg/day vitamin E or a placebo was randomly administered for 3 months to melanoma outpatients clinically free of the disease. Plasma vitamin E and mutagen sensitivity levels were measured at baseline and at the end of the trial after 3 months. At baseline, we found no significant differences in plasma vitamin E and mutagen sensitivity levels between the two groups. We also measured dietary intake at baseline and found dietary vitamin E to be a poor predictor of plasma levels of vitamin E. After 3 months of supplementation, we found that plasma levels of alpha-tocopherol increased significantly (P = 0.0005) in the vitamin E compared to the placebo group. We also found a non-significant, but consistent decrease in plasma gamma-tocopherol concentrations in the vitamin E supplemented compared to the placebo group. We did not find any significant difference between the vitamin E and placebo groups in mutagen sensitivity levels either at baseline or after 3 months of supplementation. We conclude that short term vitamin E supplementation, although it causes increased blood levels of alpha-tocopherol, does not provide protection against bleomycin-induced chromosome damage.