Don't Take Vitamin E

The medical establishment has done another about face. Well it never officially endorsed vitamin E, but your "early adopters" certainly did (with some reason: there was reasonably optimistic test tube data suggesting vitamin E might prevent cancer or heart disease).

A recent large study looking at all data thus far collected on vitamin E supplementation showed that people who took "high dose" vitamin E (i.e., the standard 400 IU vitamin E tablet) had a statistically significantly higher risk of ... *death*.

OK, so "death" - how bad could that be? Well you'd be surprised how FEW medical studies show an effect on overall death rate. Even in areas where we consider the data to be quite strong, like anti-cholerterol or anti-high-blood pressure medicines, seldom is the endpoint of death addressed. Reason: it requires a very large study and a large effect.

What about vitamin E for breast pain or PMS or the like? Well the data for effectiveness of vitamin E for these things is weak, and the data for survival from vitamin E is *death*. You do the math.

So my advice can be summarized simply as this: "Don't take vitamin E".