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." |