Vitamin E Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Vitamin E, including details on benefits, dosage, supplements, antioxidants.

Vitamin E and risk of type 2 diabetes in the women's health study randomized controlled trial.

Liu S, Lee IM, Song Y, Van Denburgh M, Cook NR, Manson JE, Buring JE

Division of Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. siminliu@ucla.edu

We directly assessed the efficacy of vitamin E supplements for primary prevention of type 2 diabetes among apparently healthy women in the Women's Health Study randomized trial. Between 1992 and 2004, 38,716 apparently healthy U.S. women aged >or=45 years and free of diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease were in two randomly assigned intervention groups and received 600 IU of vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol, n = 19,347) or placebo (n = 19,369) on alternate days. During a median 10-year follow-up, there were 827 cases of incident type 2 diabetes in the vitamin E group and 869 in the placebo group, a nonsignificant 5% risk reduction (relative risk [RR] 0.95 [95% CI 0.87-1.05], P = 0.31). There was no evidence that diabetes risk factors including age, BMI, postmenopausal hormone use, multivitamin use, physical activity, alcohol intake, and smoking status modified the effect of vitamin E on the risk of type 2 diabetes. In a sensitivity analysis taking compliance into account, women in the vitamin E group had an RR of 0.93 (95% CI 0.83-1.04) (P = 0.21) compared with those randomized to placebo. In this large trial with 10-year follow-up, alternate-day doses of 600 IU vitamin E provided no significant benefit for type 2 diabetes in initially healthy women.

Published 27 September 2006 in Diabetes, 55(10): 2856-62.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Vitamin E Research Today. All Rights Reserved.