Why Vitamin E was Ignored as Heart Therapy for 40 Years

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Why Vitamin E was Ignored as Heart Therapy for 40 Years (actually 50+, frank)

 

Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine Vol. 7, No. 4, 1992

The True Cost of Cynicism

Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.

Thursday, November 19, 1992, New York Newsday carried a report that vitamin E

had decreased the risk of heart disease between one-third and one-half. The

studies reported were conducted at the Harvard School of Public Health. In one

study, Dr. M. Stampfer found that during an eight year follow-up, women who had

taken at least 100 iu of vitamin E daily for two years had a 46 percent lower

risk of having a heart attack. This was based on a population study involving

87,245 women. The second study, on men, by Dr. E. Rimm, based upon 51,529

subjects, showed a 37 percent lower risk. They found that there was not enough

vitamin E in food; Dr. Stampfer was so convinced by the data he is taking the

vitamin himself.

These findings, of course, are not surprising to anyone familiar with the

history of vitamin E and heart disease. I suggest that you read Dr. Shute's

books. In the late 1940s, Drs. Wilfrid and Evan Shute began to treat large

numbers of patients with megadoses of vitamin E, usually above 800 IU daily.

Their clinic eventually had experience with perhaps 30,000 patients who came

from all over North America to receive their treatment. Their work was a model

of clinical research, but the idea was so novel that their work was discounted

entirely and they were considered quacks for recommending these doses for a

disease " known " not to be a vitamin deficiency disease. Fifty years ago, about

the time they began their studies, hardly anyone knew what vitamin E was, and it

was not considered important or relevant.

However the medical profession, instead of doing its duty which is to

investigate claims made by reputable physicians and scientists, persisted in

downgrading their work. In fact, one of the publications with the Harvard name

on it, the Medical Letter did a hatchet job on the Shutes' work many years ago.

By doing so it effectively killed interest for many decades. In this Medical

Letter they reviewed four studies published between 1940 and 1950 which they

claimed were final definitive studies which proved that vitamin E had no

therapeutic value for treating heart disease. I examined the four original

papers, something which few doctors seem to have done. I found them to be inept,

and so badly done that even journals willing to publish vitamin papers would

have rejected them. They did not follow the directions described by the Drs.

Shute, using too little vitamin E for too short periods of time.

Now scientists from the same university report a 35 to 50 percent reduction in

heart disease. It is important to think about this and to convert this into real

costs. Today, 40% of all deaths are caused by heart disease. Each day 2,000

people, or about 750,000 persons per year, die from heart disease. Let us assume

that the reduction in risk is exaggerated, and that in reality there is only a

10 percent reduction. This means that each year about 50,000 fewer people would

have died, a saving of about 200 patients daily. It is difficult to calculate

overall how many would have been saved if the Harvard group had taken their

responsibility seriously and examined the vitamin E claims in 1950 instead of

waiting until 1992.

This is the real cost of medical cynicism. Had they been merely skeptical they

could have done the studies to satisfy their own curiosity, but they were so

convinced the Shutes' findings were meaningless they went out of their way to

destroy them. They succeeded. I wonder if anyone at Harvard Medical School today

has given any thought to the cost of this type of inexcusable delay. This

happened several hundred years ago when Sir James Lind proved that citrus fruit

could prevent scurvy in British sailors. The Navy began to issue limes 40 years

later. In the meantime 100,000 sailors died. This again illustrates the true

costs of delay in examining seriously claims made by physicians.

The medical establishment consoles itself by claiming that the onus for proving

new findings is on the original investigator. This is merely an excuse for doing

nothing. The price is enormous. How much longer will society permit doctors the

luxury of doing nothing, especially when the suggested treatments are safe,

economical and, in the opinion of doctors who follow these treatments, so

effective? Harvard Medical School should be ashamed of itself, and owes the

American people an apology.

The recent Harvard findings illustrate again the rapid advance of the

orthomolecular paradigm in overthrowing the anti-vitamin paradigm, which has

done so much harm in the past twenty years.

A. Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.

#3A - 2727 Quadra Street

Victoria, B.C. V8T 4E5

(Reprinted with permission of the author)

 

 

 

 

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