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To B or not to B?


High doses of B vitamins didn't lower the risk of heart disease in high-risk patients in two new studies.

Canadian researchers gave more than 5,500 people with heart disease or diabetes either a daily placebo or a combination of folic acid folic acid /fo·lic ac·id/ (fo´lik) a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex, pteroylglutamic acid or related derivatives, which is involved in hematopoiesis and the synthesis of amino acids and DNA; its deficiency causes megaloblastic anemia. See tetrahydrofolic acid and folic acid antagonist. (2,500 mcg), vitamin B
1. Vitamin B complex.
2. A member of the vitamin B complex, especially thiamine.


vitamin B1
n.
See thiamine.


vitamin B2
n.
See riboflavin.
-6 (50 mg), and vitamin B-12 (1,000 mcg) as part of the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE-2) trial.

After five years, the B-vitamin takers had no lower risk of heart attacks than the placebo takers. But they did have a 24 percent higher risk of being hospitalized for unstable angina un·sta·ble angina (n-stbl)
n.
 and a 25 percent lower risk of stroke. (Unstable angina chest pain that occurs when heart muscle gets too little oxygen--can be a sign of an impending heart attack.)

The Norwegian Vitamin (NORVIT NORVIT - Norwegian Vitamin Trial) trial gave more than 3,700 heart attack patients either a placebo, folic acid (800 mcg), vitamin B-6 (40 mg), vitamin B-12 (400 mcg), or some combination of the three B vitamins every day for three years. The results suggested that those who took all three vitamins might have had a higher risk of heart attack, but not cancer, as preliminary results had suggested (see Jan./Feb. 2006, p. 8).

What to do: It's not worth taking high doses of B vitamins to lower your risk of heart disease or stroke. (It still makes sense to take a daily multivitamin mul·ti·vi·ta·min (mlt-v with B vitamins, though.) The number of strokes in this study was too small to conclude that B vitamins can lower the risk, especially since they failed to lower the risk of strokes in two other trials.

N Eng. J. Med. 354: 1567, 1578, 1629, 2006.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Center for Science in the Public Interest
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2006, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:QUICK STUDIES; high doses of vitamin B and risk of heart disease
Publication:Nutrition Action Healthletter
Geographic Code:1CANA
Date:Jun 1, 2006
Words:276
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