Vitamin E not Beneficial for Cardiovascular Disease or Cancer
Reported July 6, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — The Women’s Health Study shows vitamin E had no overall benefit on the risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer among healthy women.
I-Min Lee, M.B.B.S., Sc.D., and colleagues of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston evaluated the vitamin E portion of the WHS. In this study, 39,876 apparently healthy U.S. women at least 45 years of age, were designated to receive 600 international units of natural-source vitamin E or placebo on alternate days and were followed up, on average, for 10.1 years.
Researchers found that vitamin E had no significant effect on incidences of heart attack, stroke, ischemic or hemorrhagic, or on the total occurrences of breast, lung or colon cancers. No significant effect of vitamin E on death total was found.
“In conclusion, the WHS does not support recommending vitamin E supplementation for CVD or cancer prevention among healthy women. This large trial supports current guidelines stating that use of antioxidant vitamins is not justified for CVD risk reduction,” the authors write. “The WHS findings should be viewed in the context of the available randomized evidence, as well as data that should be available over the next several years from ongoing trials, including the Physicains’ Health Study, which will provide data on primary prevention in men.”
Study authors concluded, “At present, in the primary prevention of CVD and cancer, therapeutic lifestyle changes including a healthy diet and control of major risk factors remain important clinical and public health strategies.”
SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association;2005;294:56-65