Use of multivitamins, folic acid and herbal supplements among breast cancer survivors: the black women's health study

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Adana A Llanos¹  Lucile L Adams-Campbell¹  JoyAnn Phillips Rohan¹  Kepher H Makambi¹  Mireille Bright-Gbebry¹  Lynn Rosenberg²  Julie R Palmer² 

[1] Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University, 3970 Reservoir Road, NW, Research Building, E501, 20057, Washington, DC, USA;Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, 1010 Commonwealth Ave, 02215, Boston, MA, USA;

关键词: Folic Acid;    Breast Cancer Survivor;    African American Woman;    Herbal Supplement;    Multivitamin Supplement;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-11-30

 received in 2010-11-17, accepted in 2011-04-15,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundComplementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use, including herbals and multivitamin supplements, is quite common in the U.S., and has been shown to be highest in breast cancer survivors. However, limited data are currently available for CAM usage among African Americans. Thus, we sought to determine the prevalence of multivitamins, folic acid and herbal supplement usage in African American breast cancer survivors, and to compare the characteristics of users and nonusers.MethodsA cohort study of breast cancer survivors, who completed the 1999 Black Women's Health Study questionnaire and self-reported having been diagnosed with breast cancer between 1995 and 1999, comprised the study population. In this study, the intake of natural herbs, multivitamins and folic acid at least three days per week within the past two years was used as a proxy for typical usage of this complimentary alternative medicine (CAM) modality.ResultsA total of 998 breast cancer survivors were identified. Overall, 68.2% had used either herbals or multivitamin supplements or both. The three most frequently used herbals were garlic (21.2%), gingko (12.0%), and echinacea (9.4%). The multivariate analysis determined that single marital status (OR = 1.58; 95%CI: 1.04-2.41), and alcohol consumption of 1-3 drinks per week (OR = 1.86, 95%CI: 1.28-2.68) were significantly associated with increased herbal use. Multivitamin use was significantly lower among obese women (OR = 0.66, 95%CI: 0.46-0.94) and current smokers (OR = 0.53, 95%CI: 0.34-0.82).ConclusionsA significant number of African American breast cancer survivors are using herbals and multivitamins as CAM modality. Additional research is needed to understand the impact of herbals and multivitamins in African American breast cancer survivors.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Bright-Gbebry et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.