Friday, February 29, 2008

Vitamin E: not harmless

Vitamin E is commonly prescribed for Peyronies Disease, even though it has been shown to have NO benefit and even though several studies have suggested that high dose Vitamin E is mildly toxic.

Today another study suggested Vitamin E may slghtly increase lung cancer diagnoses:
Vitamin E Supplements May Raise Lung Cancer Risk - washingtonpost.com...

Our study of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate did not show any evidence for a decreased risk of lung cancer,' study author Dr. Christopher G. Slatore, a fellow in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Washington, said in a statement...

... Every increase in vitamin E of 100 milligrams per day was associated with a 7 percent rise in lung cancer risk -- translating into a 28 percent increase in risk over 10 years for someone taking 400 milligrams of vitamin E daily....
A 28% increase in lung cancer risk still isn't in the range of second-hand smoke, but it's significant.

Vitamin E is worthless as a Peyronies treatment. It's probably not harmless in large doses.

Urologists should not prescribe it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A JAMA study on antioxidants summarizes about 400 publications and results from over 200,000 patients. It concludes "Treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase mortality". Taking high doses over a longer period of time seems to be dangerous. See also not so good Dupuytren therapies.

Wolfgang

hortenis said...

Your list of dubious therapies is excellent! Please keep up the great work.

StephenB said...

The conclusions drawn by the vitamin E studies are flawed because they primarily use alpha tocopherol, which, when given by itself, depletes the gamma form (PMID 11722951).

Anonymous said...

Please be critical.

Evaluate exclusion criteria, form and dosage of nutrient used.

Positive studies have been known to be excluded owing to exclusion criteria.

Synthetic nutrients have different physiological effects.

Sub-pharmacological dosing - lets take 1/4 of the recommended antibiotic dose for a severe infection and see if it still works.

Metanalyses are suspect for the ease of which bias can be introduced through exclusion criteria and variable interpretation of the selected heterogenous evidence base.

Btw with the vitamin E issue go search on pubmed yourself please
and find out relevant data from which to draw inferences concerning application of vitamin E therapy to peyronies

"Vitamin E…has anti-fibrotic, anti-mitotic and anti-inflammatory effects in modifying the early stages of Peyronie's disease"


Prieto Castro RM, Leva Vallejo ME, Regueiro Lopez JC, Anglada Curado FJ, Alvarez Kindelan J, Requena Tapia MJ. BJU Int. 2003 Apr;91(6):522-4.

Don't do yourself a diservice

i doubt Vitamin E will resolve the issue itself but multiple therapeutic interventions such as acetyl-l-carnitine, proteolytic enzymes, vit c etc all provide a conducive environment for remodelling of peyronies plaque.

Theres one good site out there peyronies disease help (google it)

It sells it own supplements, but read the provided literature behind each recommended treatment before you dismiss it.

Healthy skepticism in abundance but if you flame then you get no where.