People who take vitamin supplements are just as likely as those who don’t to develop lung cancer, and vitamin E supplements may actually slightly raise the risk, researchers recently said.

According to Reuters, the study involved 77,721 people in Washington state ages 50 to 76, tracking their use over the prior decade of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate to see if this would offer protection from lung cancer.

None of the vitamins looked at in the study was tied to a reduced risk of lung cancer. In fact, people who took high doses of vitamin E, especially smokers, had a small but statistically significant elevated risk, the researchers said.

Dr. Christopher Slatore of the University of Washington in Seattle led the study, which followed the subjects of the study for four years.  Lung cancer was developed by 521 individuals, the vast majority of them smokers or former smokers.

The results of the study were published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

“Some estimates are that around 50 percent of the American public takes supplemental vitamins of some sort. There’s been a lot of thought about: ‘do these supplements actually prevent chronic diseases like lung cancer, other cancers, heart disease?” Slatore told Reuters.