antioxidant vitamins

Antioxidants May Fight Blood Vessel Blockage, Heart Disease

A UCLA research team has discovered that a popular health supplement and antioxidant vitamins may help prevent atherosclerosis, or blockage of the blood vessels. The findings are reported in the Jan. 13 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our findings suggest that people who take dietary supplements of L-arginine, an amino acid, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, might be at a lower risk for atherosclerosis and heart disease,” said Dr. Louis J. Ignarro, a 1998 Nobel laureate in medicine and UCLA professor of molecular and medical pharmacology. “This is significant because cardiovascular disease is still the No. 1 cause of death in the United States.”

Hormones, Antioxidants Could Hurt Older Women with Heart Disease

A study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health has found that postmenopausal women with heart disease who took hormone therapy and high dose antioxidant vitamins ? either alone or in combination with hormones ? did not have fewer heart attacks, deaths, or progression of coronary disease. In fact, both treatments showed a potential for harm. Although the actual numbers of deaths in the study were small, participants taking both active hormones and vitamins had the highest death rate while participants on placebo versions of both treatments had the lowest death rate.