The Durk Pearson & Sandy Shaw® Life Extension NewsTM Volume 8
No. 1 • January 2005 More on the Failure of Antioxidant Trials
in the Prevention of Heart Attacks There has been much
discussion of possible reasons that many long-term trials of
antioxidant vitamins E and C did not provide protection against
heart attacks. For example, as reported in Reference 1 below,
Vitamin E supplementation in intervention trials to prevent
cardiovascular disease was found to be efficacious in two trials
(CHAOS and SPACE), whereas six other trials (ATBC, GISSI, PPP,
SECURE, HOPE, and VEAPS) found no benefits. The authors note
that there were widely varying doses of vitamin E used in these
studies and that it is not known what doses of vitamin E are
necessary to suppress oxidative stress in humans. They go on to
point out that, importantly, “… none of these studies
incorporated measures of oxidative stress, such as measurement
of F2-isoprostanes, to determine the level of oxidative stress
and the ability of vitamin E [at the do