Contact: Caron Blitz
Blitz & Associates, Inc.
847/945-0101
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Benchmark Study Reaffirms Safety and Benefits of Alpha-Tocopherol (Vitamin E) in Delaying Progression of Degenerative Diseases
April 30, 1997, LaGrange, IL -- "Anyone with a family history of Alzheimer's disease or heart disease would be foolish not to take daily vitamin E supplements," a leading physician said today in response to a study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study, "A Controlled Trial of Selegiline, Alpha-Tocopherol, Or Both As Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease," showed that just two years of vitamin E supplementation can delay the progression of the disease in moderately senile patients by almost eight months. In fact, vitamin E was substantially more effective than either the drug selegiline or a placebo in the longest clinical trial to date testing drugs for slowing the progression of Alzheimer's.
Ishwarlal Jialal, MD, an associate professor of pathology and internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, has been studying the safety and benefits of vitamin E for years and says this study is an important break- through.
"This study is yet another feather in the cap for vitamin E. It reaffirms key factors we already knew about vitamin E, namely that it is a powerful antioxidant in the prevention of heart disease and supports the immune function in the aging process. Now, this finding provides meaningful evidence that vitamin E also helps fight a major degenerative disease such as Alzheimer's," Dr. Jialal said.
He also pointed out the significance of vitamin E's safety. Patients in the study were taking 2,000 international units of vitamin E daily under medical supervision and had no reported side effects. "That is a powerful finding," according to Dr. Jialal, whose published studies have documented the benefits and safety of patients taking vitamin E in amounts much higher than the U.S. Government Recommended Daily Allowance. While the current RDA is only 15 IU for men and 12 IU for women, most people who use supplements tend to take about 400 IU each day.
"The researchers believe it is now reasonable for doctors to consider the use of either selegiline or vitamin E in patients with moderately severe Alzheimer's disease. Today, no other treatments have shown a similar ability to delay important milestones in Alzheimer's disease," according to statements released at a news conference held by the National Institute on Aging, which provided funding for the study.
In the accompanying editorial, the authors part from more conservative medical recommendations of the past in which patients were encouraged to wait for more clinical trials to be conducted before taking a supplement or drug. They write, "Vitamin E is available over the counter, and selegiline is a marketed prescription drug. Those who care for patients with Alzheimer's disease may wish to try one or the other." Recommendations are given to do further studies to determine the long-term effects.
Dr. Jialal referenced the editorial when he said that these study findings symbolize what medicine is all about: "Improving the quality of life." He commented that while we have not found a cure for Alzheimer's, we now have promising evidence that will help ease the strife of patients and their families.
In the study, 341 moderate stage Alzheimer patients participated in a double- blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, multi-center trial. Participants received selegiline (10 milligrams per day), vitamin E (2,000 IU alpha-tocopherol per day), a combination of both or a placebo for two years, and were followed to see when they reached one of the following endpoints: death, institutionalization, inability to do certain basic activities of daily living, or severe dementia. The study was not designed to see if the patients would improve but to see if the vitamin E and/or drug would slow the progression of the disease.
Patients taking vitamin E did not develop severe Alzheimer's until almost eight months after untreated patients, and those taking selegiline did not develop the disease for seven months after untreated patients. However, a combination of both vitamin E and selegiline slowed the development of Alzheimer's by only five months, suggesting that the vitamin E and selegiline work better by themselves. Statistically, vitamin E was about 25 percent more effective than selegiline in reducing the risk of Alzheimer's progression.
Recently, the American Heart Association named vitamin E as one of the most noteworthy accomplishments in 1996. Important research supporting the role of vitamin E includes a benchmark study of 2,000 patients with heart disease. In the trial known as the CHAOS study published last year in the Lancet, natural vitamin E supplements reduced heart attacks by a dramatic 77 percent. Two Harvard studies, involving a total of about 135,000 health professionals, found that those who took daily supplements of vitamin E had one-fourth to one-third less coronary risk than those who did not take the supplements. In yet another study of 11,178 individuals over 65, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vitamin E supplements lowered total mortality rates by 34 percent, reduced the risk of heart disease mortality by 47 percent and decreased cancer mortality by 23 percent.
The VERIS Research Information Service is a not-for-profit corporation that strives to provide a responsible source of information on the role of nutrition in health, with emphasis on antioxidants, to health professionals, researchers, and health and nutrition educators/communicators worldwide.
###
RSS