Article: Vitamin E doesn't work

Vitamin E supplements may do more harm than good


Associated Press
Wednesday, Nov 10, 2004









New Orleans - Vitamin E supplements, taken by many people in
hopes of warding off heart disease, do not work and may actually make the
condition worse, researchers say.

"People take vitamin E because they think it's going to make
them live longer. This doesn't support that at all," said Dr. Edgar Miller
of Johns Hopkins University, who led the new analysis.

The study was reported Wednesday at an American Heart
Association conference in New Orleans and was also published on-line by the
Annals of Internal Medicine.

Many people continue to take vitamin E despite Heart Association
guidelines saying it doesn't work and recent research suggesting it can
interfere with statin drugs.

The study was an analysis of 19 previous studies involving a
total of about 136,000 people who took vitamin E alone or in combination
with other vitamins.

Those taking 400 international units per day or more - the
amount in most vitamin E supplements - had 10 times the risk of dying as
those taking 200 units or less.

Most multivitamins contain 35 to 40 units of vitamin E, which
the study suggests might be slightly beneficial for health, Miller said.

"I spend all my time trying to tell patients why they should not
take vitamin E," Dr. Raymond Gibbons, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist and
chairman of the American Heart Association conference. "Too often in terms
of the supplements there's very scant science. In this area, we have the
science. Vitamin E doesn't work."

The idea that antioxidants such as vitamin E might ward off
heart trouble was based in part on test tube studies that indicated they
protect the heart's arteries by blocking the damaging effects of oxygen.
Studies also show that healthy people who eat vitamin-rich food seem to have
less heart disease.

However, experts say that perhaps antioxidants work when only in
food, or that people who eat vitamin-rich food have a lower risk of heart
disease because they take better care of themselves overall.

Dr. Robert Eckel, a cardiologist and metabolism expert from the
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, said he long has advised
patients not to take vitamin E but that people cling to the belief it is
beneficial. One woman he recently treated was taking 23 nutritional
supplements but did not want to take "medicines" because she thought all
supplements were good and all prescription drugs suspect.

"This is a real issue," he said.





© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.