This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related letters  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Nutrition/ Malnutrition  • Statistics and Research Methods  • Alert me on articles by topic  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Bjelakovic and colleagues¹ showed that there is no evidence from randomized trials that antioxidant supplements reduce mortality. However, the authors did not consider that the effects might vary among different population subgroups so that an average for a large group of people could be misleading.

Analyses of the large-scale Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene (ATBC) Cancer Prevention Study found substantial divergence in the effect of 50 mg/d of vitamin E on common cold incidence in elderly men. Among participants 72 years or older, who smoked heavily, and lived outside cities, use of vitamin E increased common cold incidence by 58% (95% confidence interval [CI], 23%-101%; 0.83 vs 0.53 colds per year), whereas in less-smoking city-dwellers it reduced common cold incidence by 46% (95% CI, –20% to –63%; 0.47 vs 0.86 colds per year).² The effect of vitamin E on the incidence of pneumonia also diverged so that the risk . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Harri Hemilä, MD, PhD
harri.hemila@helsinki.fi
Department of Public Health
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED LETTERS

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality

JAMA. ;298():400-400.
FULL TEXT  

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality
, , and
JAMA. ;298():400-401.
FULL TEXT  

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality
and
JAMA. ;298():401-402.
FULL TEXT  

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality Reply
, , , , and
JAMA. ;298():402-403.
FULL TEXT  

RELATED ARTICLE

Mortality in Randomized Trials of Antioxidant Supplements for Primary and Secondary Prevention: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
, , , , and
JAMA. ;297():842-857.
FULL TEXT