Folic Acid Supplements Won't Lower Heart-Attack Risk

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"Doctors should not advise patients who have cardiovascular disease to take B vitamins in order to prevent heart disease or stroke," said lead author Dr. Kaare Harald Bønaa, a professor of medicine and consultant cardiologist at the Institute of Community Medicine at the University of Tromsø. "B vitamins do not prevent heart disease," he added.

In the second study, called the Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE) 2 study, researchers gave more than 5,500 patients who had diabetes or vascular disease folic acid, vitamins B12 and B6, or a placebo.

Over the five years of the study, homocysteine levels dropped significantly among those receiving the supplements, but -- just as happened with the NORVIT trial -- this lowering of homocysteine did not result in significantly reduced risk of death from heart disease or heart attacks.

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There did, however, appear to be a slight reduction in stroke among people taking the supplements, the researchers reported.

Overall, however, the researchers concluded that "combined daily administration of 2.5 mg [milligrams] of folic acid, 50 mg of vitamin B6, and 1 mg of vitamin B12 for five years had no beneficial effects on major vascular events in a high-risk population with vascular disease."

They added that "our results do not support the use of folic acid and B vitamin supplements as a preventive treatment."

However, Anne Dickinson, a consultant and past president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, which represents the supplements industry, said the findings may not apply to relatively healthy Americans who are turning to these vitamins to help ward off heart disease.

She noted that the two study populations involved sicker individuals with a history of heart attack, heart disease, diabetes and other problems.

"These studies did not test whether B vitamins used by healthy people can help keep them healthy," Dickinson said in a prepared statement. "Instead, they looked at whether B vitamins can treat or reverse heart disease in people who already have it. Vitamins should not be expected to perform like drugs -- their greatest purpose is in prevention."

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