Word: ius
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Just a few years ago, it seemed as if vitamin E could be the cure for nearly everything. Observational studies suggested that moderately high doses (400 International Units, or IUs) could prevent heart disease, cancer and dementia--and make your skin glow too. But lately scientists, using more rigorous tests, have had trouble substantiating some of those benefits...
...comes what may be the crowning blow--at least with respect to staving off heart disease. A double-blind placebo-controlled trial, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week, found that taking 400 IUs of vitamin E each day did nothing to prevent heart attacks or strokes in a group of nearly 10,000 mostly elderly patients with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. This disappointing news comes on the heels of the Women's Health Study finding earlier this month that vitamin E confers no cardiac benefit on healthy women age 45 or older...
There's no need to panic. If you take a multivitamin, you're getting only 30 IUs of vitamin E, and this has long been shown to be a safe amount. And 400 IUs may yet prove to be fine. For complicated statistical reasons, the heart- failure finding could easily be a fluke, the study's coordinating investigator readily admits...
...nutrient, and now researchers say that rickets--a bone-weakening disease linked to lack of D--is on the rise in children. You might consider supplementing mother's milk with formula or giving your child a multi-vitamin containing D. Caution: too much D--more than 400 IUs from all sources daily--is toxic to toddlers...
...Vitamin E may not help the heart after all. In a double-blind trial of nearly 10,000 high-risk patients--who had already had a heart attack or stroke--400 IUs of vitamin E daily didn't work any better than a sugar pill in preventing a subsequent episode of heart trouble. Best advice: for now, count on aspirin and the other meds your doctor prescribes...