Massive Study Supports Use of Vitamin E For The Heart
Complementary Healthcare Council of Australia
A new study involving nearly 40,000 healthy women has found that vitamin E significantly reduced the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. It is the longest and largest trial ever conducted on vitamin E.
The results of the Women’s Health Study (WHS) reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also confirmed that vitamin E is safe, reporting that taking 600 IU of vitamin E supplements every other day did not increase total mortality in healthy women.
The study contradicts a recent meta-analysis that reviewed studies of people already ill with cancer, heart disease or other serious medical conditions.
Complementary Healthcare Council executive director Dr Tony Lewis said the study confirmed the benefits of Vitamin E. He said the new data shows that vitamin E can help healthy women, especially older women.
“They can continue to take vitamin E with confidence and expect to derive substantial benefit.”
The WHS found a 24 percent reduction in cardiovascular deaths among the nearly 20,000 women who took vitamin E supplements over a 10-year period compared with the nearly 20,000 other study participants who were given placebo. For women 65 and over, the study reported that taking vitamin E supplements had an even greater positive effect. Among that population, there was a 49 percent reduction in cardiovascular death and a 34 percent reduction in heart attack.
Professor Maret Traber, Ph.D., a principal investigator at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University and a leading expert on vitamin E, said the WHS offers exciting new information, particularly for older women who have a greater risk of heart disease. “Vitamin E has clear value in helping to reduce the risk of heart and other serious degenerative diseases,” she said. “This is especially important for people who smoke, have high blood pressure, or who don’t eat properly, habits which can leave them with inadequate levels of this essential vitamin.”
The WHS finding on safety is consistent with a recent review of scientific literature published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, which found vitamin E is safe at daily intakes of 1600 IU. (Vitamin E supplements most commonly contain 400 IU).
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