Posted on July 31, 2001 at 10:00 a.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — UAB and the VA Birmingham Medical Center are enrolling healthy men for the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT). The study seeks to learn if these two dietary supplements can protect against prostate cancer.

More than 400 sites in the United States, Puerto Rico, and Canada are recruiting healthy male participants for SELECT, which will take up to 12 years to complete. The study will include a total of 32,400 men.

For more information, veterans interested in joining the study can call the Birmingham VA Medical Center’s SELECT Research Center at (205) 558-7059, and men who are not veterans can call UAB Division of Preventive Medicine at (205) 975-7272.

“SELECT is the first study designed to look directly at the effects of vitamin E and selenium, both separately and together, in preventing prostate cancer,” said Dr. James Shikany, principal investigator and assistant professor in UAB's Division of Preventive Medicine.

Dr. Michael P. Everson, principal investigator, Birmingham VA Medical Center’s SELECT Research Center, said, “Previous research involving vitamin E and selenium suggested that these nutrients might prevent prostate cancer, but we don’t know for sure. When SELECT is finished, we will know whether these supplements can prevent prostate cancer.”

During this year alone, prostate cancer will be diagnosed in about 198,100 Americans and more than 31,500 men are expected to die of the disease. In Alabama, 4,100 men will get prostate cancer and 600 men will die of it. Risk factors for the disease include being over age 55, being black, or having a father or brother with prostate cancer.

“Since African-American men have the highest incidence of prostate cancer in the world, we especially encourage them to consider joining this trial,” Shikany said. The disease also strikes black men at a younger age, so they will be eligible to enroll in the study at age 50, vs. age 55 for other racial and ethnic groups. There is no upper age limit for participation in SELECT.

Selenium and vitamin E, both naturally occurring nutrients, are antioxidants. They are capable of neutralizing toxins known as “free radicals” that might otherwise damage the genetic material of cells and possibly lead to cancer. These nutrients were chosen for study because of the results of two other large cancer prevention trials.

Upon enrollment, they will be assigned by chance to one of four groups. One group will take 200 micrograms of selenium daily plus an inactive capsule, or placebo, that looks like vitamin E. Another group will take 400 milligrams of vitamin E daily along with a placebo that looks like selenium. A third group will take both selenium and vitamin E. And a final group will be given two placebos.

Men who join SELECT will not need to change their diet in any way, but they must stop taking any supplements they buy themselves that contain selenium or vitamin E. If participants wish to take a multivitamin, a specially formulated one that does not contain selenium or vitamin E will be provided without charge.

Men may be able to participate in SELECT if they:

• are age 55 or older; age 50 or older for black men
  
  
• have never had prostate cancer and have not had any other cancer, except nonmelanoma skin cancer, in the last five years
  
  
• are generally in good health