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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2010 Jun;117(6):1163-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.ophtha.2009.10.043. Epub 2010 Feb 13.

Vitamin E and age-related macular degeneration in a randomized trial of women

William G Christen  1 , Robert J Glynn, Emily Y Chew, Julie E Buring
Affiliations
Randomized Controlled Trial

Vitamin E and age-related macular degeneration in a randomized trial of women

William G Christen et al. Ophthalmology. 2010 Jun.

Abstract

Objective: To test whether alternate day vitamin E affects the incidence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in a large-scale randomized trial of women.

Design: Randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial.

Participants: Thirty-nine thousand eight hundred seventy-six apparently healthy female health professionals aged 45 years or older.

Intervention: Participants were assigned randomly to receive either 600 IU of natural-source vitamin E on alternate days or placebo.

Main outcome measures: Incident AMD responsible for a reduction in best-corrected visual acuity to 20/30 or worse based on self-report confirmed by medical record review.

Results: After 10 years of treatment and follow-up, there were 117 cases of AMD in the vitamin E group and 128 cases in the placebo group (relative risk, 0.93; 95% confidence interval, 0.72-1.19).

Conclusions: In a large-scale randomized trial of female health professionals, long-term alternate-day use of 600 IU of natural-source vitamin E had no large beneficial or harmful effect on risk of AMD.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram illustrating the vitamin E component of the Women’s Health Study (WHS). A total of 455 participants who had a diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration at baseline were excluded.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cumulative incidence rates of visually-significant age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in the Women’s Health Study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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