By: Thomas Pickering, MD, DPhil, FRCP, Director of Integrative and Behavioral Cardiology Program
of the Cardiovascular Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York.

Although several studies have suggested that people who take vitamin E are at reduced risk of heart disease, conclusive evidence for a protective effect of vitamin E has so far been lacking. Now comes a randomized clinical trial (called CHAOS--the Cambridge Heart Antioxidant Study), which appears to settle the matter.

Two thousand men and women who already had coronary heart disease were treated with either vitamin E (400 or 800 IU per day) or placebo (inert pills) for one to two years. There were half as many heart attacks in the group given the vitamin as in the other group. The overall death rate was not affected.

Doctor's comments

To prove that a particular treatment is effective generally requires a randomized trail such as done here. This is the first time that this has been done using vitamin E and shows conclusively that in people who are at high risk of having a heart attack, this risk can be cut in half by vitamin E. A dose of 400 IU appears to be sufficient. It would have required a larger number of patients followed for a longer period of time to show an effect on mortality.

Where it was published