THURSDAY, Sept. 19 , 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- Vitamin E, long touted as an anti-aging antioxidant that can ward off heart disease, may not deliver on the promise.
A new study finds it did reduce the oxidation of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called bad cholesterol. However, that reduction didn't translate into a slower progression of the hardening of the arteries that boosts the risk of heart disease, says Dr. Howard N. Hodis, professor of medicine and preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. Hodis is lead author of the study, which appears in the current issue of Circulation.
Veteran antioxidant researchers say that while the study is disappointing, it isn't the last word. It?s certainly not a reason to throw out your supply, since the vitamin may help protect against a number of other diseases.
Hodis and his team assigned more than 300 healthy men and women, aged 40 and older, all with LDL levels above the 130 milligrams-per-deciliter level that is considered undesirable for heart health, to take a placebo or to take 400 international units (IUs) of vitamin E daily. They followed 258 of them for the full three years of the study, evaluating them every six months.
"They were pre-selected to be healthy, actually quite healthy," says Hodis. "The only risk factor we wanted them to have was to have an LDL above 130. The average LDL was about 145."
When they evaluated the effect of vitamin E on heart disease risk, Hodis says, they found it reduced the oxidation of LDL cholesterol in the blood. "It has been thought that if you can protect someone's LDL, by making it more resistant to oxidation, that can ward off atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries," Hodis says.
Then came the disappointment. The researchers used ultrasound to look at the thickness of an artery wall, which helps evaluate how hardening of the arteries is progressing. "The progression of atherosclerosis was the same between groups," Hodis says.
Other studies have found vitamin E boosts heart health. "What is new about this study is we looked directly at the atherosclerosis process, right at the arterial wall, to see if there was an effect. Others have looked at outcomes [of people] who took vitamin E and who had a heart attack," he explains.
"This study is cause and effect," Hodis says. "For those given the vitamin E, there is no beneficial effect on atherosclerosis. That's consistent with a half dozen other studies finding the same conclusions."
Hodis offers some caveats about the study. "It might be that long-term use would work," he says. Perhaps he should have studied subjects in their 20s instead of those in their 40s or older, he says, and followed them for much longer periods.
Other antioxidant experts call the research results disappointing. However, they say it's too soon to give up on the vitamin.
"Clearly it's another disappointment for vitamin E," says Jeffrey Blumberg, professor of nutrition at Tufts University and a well-known antioxidant researcher. "There were no effects [on atherosclerosis progression] seen, but also no harm done."
Still, Blumberg says, other studies have shown that vitamin E does slow progression of the arterial wall thickening.
"This is a good study," Blumberg says, but it won't be the last. Other studies, for instance, have looked at higher doses of the vitamin and found benefit, he says.
"By no means does this study close the door on vitamin E being protective," says Dr. Meir Stampfer, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "You have to interpret this as evidence against vitamin E, but not definitive."
The group studied, Stampfer says, was quite healthy, except for the undesirable LDL levels. It could be, he says, that vitamin E would have a more protective effect in less healthy subjects.
Advice? "There is nothing in this [latest] study that would tell someone who is taking vitamin E to stop," Blumberg says. "And there are other reasons to continue taking vitamin E. It may help prevent prostate cancer, macular degeneration [of the eye], and Alzheimer's disease."
What To Do
For information on vitamins and minerals, try the American Dietetic Association. For information on antioxidants and life extension, click on the National Institute on Aging.
