CRN campaigns to show vitamin E not harmful

30/11/2004 - The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) yesterday launched a national campaign to reassure the public of the safety and benefits of vitamin E.

The CRN’s action was initiated by the publication of a meta-analysis on the supplement earlier in the month that concluded that high doses of vitamin E could do more harm than good.

The campaign began officially yesterday with a full-page advertisement in editions of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today. The adverts featured quotes from several health researchers refuting the negative claims of the recent meta-analysis and noting the presumed benefits of vitamin E.
The adverts also focused on the fact that the Institute of Medicine reviewed 340 peer-reviewed scientific studies and references on vitamin E, including most of the studies covered in the meta-analysis, and concluded that vitamin E is safe at levels as high as 1000 mg per day (1500 IU for natural vitamin E, or 1000 IU of synthetic vitamin E).

In addition, the CRN has launched a website that attempts to answer any possible questions that members of the supplement industry or the public, could have about the vitamin.

"The CRN is taking these actions because vitamin E consumers have been confused and unnecessarily frightened by sensationalist headlines generated by scientists from a respected university who have presented the findings of one meta-analysis in an irresponsible manner. Vitamin E is both safe and good for you," said Annette Dickinson president of the CRN.

The organization is also drawing attention to the fact that many clinical trails are underway looking at the possible benefits of vitamin E, namely at Harvard University and and government agencies such as the National Cancer Institute. These studies are investigating the protective effect of vitamin E on heart disease and a number of cancers including prostate cancer.

"These studies are continuing, despite the meta-analysis, because the principal investigators remain confident in the safety of vitamin E," added the CRN.

The study at the root of this controversy was published earlier this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine and reported at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions. It stated that daily vitamin E doses of 400 international units (IU) or more can increase the risk of death and should be avoided.
The researchers noted that "in animal and observational studies, vitamin E supplementation was shown to prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer. However, other studies suggested that high doses could be harmful".

In order to investigate these findings and determine if there is a 'dose-dependant response', researchers studied death rates in published clinical trials comparing vitamin E supplementation to placebo and included findings from 14 studies undertaken between 1993 and 2004. "Doses ranged from 15 to 2000 IU/day, and average intake was about 400 IU a day," said the researchers.

"Increasing doses of vitamin E were linked to an increase in death," said lead author Edgar Miller, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

He qualified this statement by noting that there was no increased risk of death with a dose of 200 IU per day or less, "and there may even be some benefit". However, there was an increased risk at amounts above 200 IU per day and significant risk of death was found at 400 IU and above a day.

"Those who take greater than 400 IU of vitamin E a day are about 10 percent more likely to die than those who do not," researchers said, adding that many people who take vitamin E supplements take between 400 and 800 IU in a single capsule.

Vitamin E is currently growing faster than traditional food ingredients at around 5-7 percent on a global basis. Natural vitamin E is growing slightly faster, based on its use in health products. However newresearch can cause spikes in demand for vitamins.

"Studies that are able to obtain this type of high media attention do have a significant impact on sales. For example, positive studies in the mid-90's had a significant positive effect on vitamin E sales," Thomas Breisach, spokesman for DSM Nutritional Products, one of the largest manufacturers of the synthetic vitamin, told NutraIngredients.com.

"According to feedback from some customers, there is a short term drop in vitamin E business in the week since the story ran," he added.

New research
Research published last week may have allayed the fears of some already. A study from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology suggested that about 40 percent of diabetic patients could reduce their risk of heart attacks and of dying from heart disease by taking vitamin E supplements.
The study, published in the November issue of Diabetes Care (27: 2767), also measured the effects of high dose (400IU) of vitamin E.

The research team, led by Dr Andrew Levy of the Faculty of Medicine, had earlier demonstrated that diabetics with a particular form of a blood protein called haptoglobin had as much as a 500 percent increased risk of developing heart disease.

The new study shows that when these at-risk patients, who have the 2-2 form of haptoglobin, took 400 international units of vitamin E daily, they reduced their risk of heart attack by 43 per cent, and their risk of dying of heart disease by 55 percent.

About 40 percent of diabetics have the 2-2 form of haptoglobin, according to the Israel-based researchers, while the rest have the 1 -1 or 2-1 forms. When the others took the same vitamin E supplements, they did not show any significant reduction of cardiovascular risk resulting from vitamin E therapy.

A large-scale, five-year study of some 2,000 diabetics with haptoglobin 2-2, being conducted in northern Israel, is expected to corroborate Dr Levy's findings, giving the supplement industry further support for this vitamin.