Vitamin E – Is it Bad for You?

Vitamin E – Is it Bad for You?

By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy

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The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.

Dr. Hrabarchuk came into the pharmacy the other day and said that if Vitamin E was a prescription drug it would be pulled off the market. When Dauphin’s Internist makes such statements, it catches our attention. So he left us some reading about a study on Vitamin E. The following is what got him so excited.

There was a big trial run between 1993 and 1999 called the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE) trial. It told us things like the blood pressure pill ramipril is very good for the heart. It also looked at Vitamin E 400 IU’s per day in the hope that Vitamin E would prevent heart problems. The HOPE trial did not show improvement in heart outcomes due to Vitamin E.

The original HOPE trial involved patients at least 55 years old with vascular disease or diabetes. There was an extension of the HOPE trial, called HOPE-TOO. Of the 9541 patients in the HOPE trial, 7030 agreed to continue to be followed from April 1999 to May 2003. Again these people were on Vitamin E 400 IU and the researchers were looking to see if they got cancer, died from cancer, or got heart problems like heart attack, stroke or death from heart problems more often than people on sugar pill (placebo).

So the answer was…. there was no difference in the rates of cancer, cancer deaths, heart attacks, strokes or death from heart problems. The HOPE trial did find that people on Vitamin E were more likely than the sugar pill group to get a heart disease called heart failure. The trial found that those taking Vitamin E were more likely to be hospitalized due to heart failure.

So if Vitamin E is a natural anti-oxidant, why are more people getting heart failure, and why are more people going to the hospital? We don’t know for sure. Some expert think that too much Vitamin E (and 400 IU may be too much) might not be an anti-oxidant anymore. Or may too much Vitamin E does bad things to your good cholesterol (HDL).

So should I throw my Vitamin E away? We don’t know for certain on that either. If a patient already has had a heart problem like a heart attack, Vitamin E could do them harm. If a patient has never had any heart problems, we don’t know what Vitamin E will do.

Five or six years ago, Vitamin E was very popular. People were taking it for everything from protecting their heart to helping with Alzheimers. Now, studies seem to be saying that the best case is that Vitamin E supplements do no good, and worst case is that they do people harm.


As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.