HOPE-TOO Vitamin E Analysis On High-Risk, Highly Medicated Population: Results Do Not Correlate To Healthy People
Study Overlooks Vitamin E’s Proven Benefits in Alzheimer’s, Prostate and Immune Health and Liver Disease
Pharmavite LLC, makers of Nature Made® vitamins advised against drawing hasty conclusions on vitamin E use in healthy people, based on the HOPE-TOO study published in the March 16 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA. The isolated findings of the HOPE-TOO study apply only to an older group of patients with a history of heart disease, stroke or diabetes. The participants were also taking a combination of medications, including ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, anti-platelet agents and lipid-lowering agents. Further, a significant percentage of study participants were cigarette smokers.
“One study on very sick, very medicated people should be seen in the context of hundreds of studies which show positive health benefits of vitamin E,“ said David Madsen, Ph.D., Pharmavite director of scientific affairs.
“HOPE-TOO is the only study to report an adverse relationship between vitamin E and heart failure. The authors themselves state their findings could purely be chance, and similar studies, also on at-risk populations, have not reported this type of relationship,” he added.
Dr. Madsen noted that numerous vitamin E studies with large patient populations, both interventional and non-invasive, have shown no adverse outcomes on cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Madsen also said that there were several studies underway on vitamin E. “The National Cancer Institute’s SELECT trial is examining the ability of vitamin E to reduce prostate cancer risk among 35,000 men, and the PIVENS trial looks at how vitamin E can impact liver disease,” he said. These studies are continuing because the academic and medical researchers involved in these studies are confident in the safety of vitamin E and believe there is a strong likelihood of benefit.
“Vitamin E is primarily used for its general and preventative health benefits in people who are healthy,” said Dr. Madsen. “Healthy people who want to maintain good health can continue to consume vitamin E every day. The Institute of Medicine has concluded that vitamin E intake is safe up to 1,000 IU per day for normal, healthy adults.”
“The authors of HOPE-TOO have raised a concern. We join the authors in calling for additional research to probe additional clinical trial data for similar outcomes. This is the only way to determine if the HOPE-TOO results are real.”
Madsen encouraged those with questions to talk to their preferred health care provider.
