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Study Finds Vitamin E No Help in Preventing Heart Disease

By Henry J. Fishman, M.D.
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 27, 2006

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Vitamin E may not prevent heart trouble as much as we thought, according to an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Doctors studied nearly 10,000 people over the age of 50 with heart trouble or diabetes. They gave some folks a high dose of Vitamin E -- 400 international units a day -- and some a placebo.

Then they monitored the two groups for just about any kind of trouble that could bother their blood vessels, like angina, heart attack, strokes or blood clots.

Unfortunately, Vitamin E had absolutely no impact on how people did. It did not help at all over a 5-year period.

Conclusions: A few studies have shown that Vitamin E in your diet may help prevent heart trouble. This one and a number of others show that supplements don't help.

While the vitamin may help over long time periods like a decade or in combination with other supplements, in most cases it doesn't seem to work.

Talk to your doctor about moderate doses of the supplement, eat a healthy diet and don't throw out your pills just yet.

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