New JAMA Study Unfairly Attacks Vitamin E

In the typical biased slant of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), an article published in the July 6th edition bashes vitamin E once again. In the latest report from the Women’s Health Study – a long-term analysis of the health of female health-care professionals that has been ongoing since 1992 – the authors state that women who took 600 I.U. natural source vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) every other day for 10 years had no reduction in major cardiovascular events (heart attack, stroke) or incidence of cancer during the trial. However, vitamin E supplementation DID result in “decreased cardiovascular mortality in healthy women.” This result is a significant finding and should have been emphasized in the article’s conclusion. Instead of stating that women who took vitamin E for 10 years had a 24-percent reduction in risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, the authors concluded, “These data do not support recommending vitamin E supplementation for cardiovascular disease or cancer prevention among healthy women.” Even though their data can substantiate their conclusion regarding cancer, the beneficial cardiovascular data is very important and highly significant, and should have been emphasized.

Learn more about the health promoting aspects of vitamin E by clicking on the link

JAMA itself is not without fault. In their weekly press release they put forth the “negative” aspects of the study with the headline “ Long-Term Vitamin E Supplementation Shows No Overall Benefit For Major Cardiovascular Events Or Cancer In Women.” The positive aspects of the study (the long-term safety of vitamin E and a 24-percent decreased risk of cardiovascular death) were buried in paragraph four with no commentary about these findings. Of course, the television networks and newspapers ran with the negative aspect of the story as spoon-fed to them by the JAMA press release.

JAMA has a long and inglorious history of publishing negative studies regarding the use of nutrients, and this latest article shows that even a positive result can be turned into a negative by biased researchers and/or publishers.

The bottom line – vitamin E supplementation has not been shown to be harmful for healthy human beings, and decreases the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.