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| Study: Vitamin E might make heart disease worse |
| 2004-11-11 |
| 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 online 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. Great, I just brought more last week.. 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." |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #4 Hmmmm....I always referred to Ecstasy as "vitamin E".... ;) |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-11-11 2:23:53 PM |
| #3 "135,967 adults who had participated in 19 studies. Many were older than 60 years of age. About 60% had heart disease or a risk factor for heart disease, such as tobacco use and high blood pressure." Taken from an online summary of the article. Meta-Analysis study involving 19 different studies. Never did trust this type of analysis. Not to say it isn't true, just suspect. On the other side, also highly suspect is the idea "if it's natural, it can't hurt me". Right. Please swallow this pound of nightshade and get back to me tomorrow. |
| Posted by: Weird Al 2004-11-11 11:24:24 AM |
| #2 I wonder if they corrected for obvious sample bias. In other words,, its more likely that heart patients and such would be the ones on Vitamin E, and not normal healthy people, so of course you'll find a larger percentage of heart problems with Vitamin E users. Its like saying that people on blood pressure medication are more likely to have strokes than those not on it - which is true for the general population, but not true for those with high blood pressure. This smells like "bad science". And cardiologists seem to be no better at it than anyone else, given their repeated rejection of the Atkins diet, even after it was shown to work - in clinical studies as well as in "the real world" - to reduce the risk of cardiac problems in the target group (Syndrome X people). These are the same experts who devised the food pyramid that has resulted in the fattest population on earth. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-11-11 9:54:03 AM |
| #1 This is one of my pet peeves: women's health studies. Rarely does a week go by where the very (food, product, supplement, procedure) that was touted last month as a cure for (breast cancer, "female troubles", you name it) is found to be the cause of something else equally or even more dire. I'm so tired of the stories on the news threatening me with the latest studies; I really feel like the (yes, MSM) considers me (and women in general) as total idiots, unable to care for ourselves without their "guidance". Feh. /rant |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2004-11-11 9:12:15 AM |