Women's Hearts: Does Vitamin E Really Help?

Native News Network Staff in Native Health Discussion »

BETHESDA, MARYLAND – As with women of all races and ethnic backgrounds, for American Indian and Alaska Native women heart disease is the biggest cause of death.

Reduce Your Risk

Contrary to what once was commonly thought, Vitamin E may not be the way to prevent heart failure.

In a report recently released, researchers looked at about 10 years of data on nearly 40,000 women who had healthy hearts at the start, to see if the antioxidant would live up to its billing about removing potentially damaging forms of oxygen.

“Antioxidant therapy with vitamin E at a dose of 600 international units every other day did not reduce the overall risk of incident heart failure in initially healthy women,”

commented researcher Claudia Chae at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In heart failure, the heart can't pump enough blood to the rest of the body.

There are a number of things you can do to reduce the risk for coronary artery disease and heart failure. These things include:

posted June 25, 2012 7:10 am edt