Supplemental vitamins C and E reduce post-heart attack deaths in diabetics
In a communication published online on August 12, 2008 in the journal Cardiology, researchers at Grochowski Hospital and the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw report the results of a preliminary study which found that supplementing diabetic patients with vitamins C and E significantly reduced mortality over a thirty day period following acute myocardial infarction (heart attack). The presence of diabetes is known to adversely affect heart attack outcome.
The study included 800 participants in the Myocardial Infarction and Vitamins (MIVIT) study, a placebo-controlled clinical trial designed to assess the safety and outcome of the antioxidant vitamins C and E in heart attack patients. Subjects were randomized to receive a 12 hour intravenous infusion of one gram vitamin C followed by 400 milligrams vitamin C plus 200 milligrams vitamin E administered orally three times per day, or a placebo regimen.
The researchers compared 30-day cardiac mortality among those who received the vitamins with that of subjects who received the placebo. Although deaths were the same for the treatment and placebo groups in nondiabetic subjects, among the 122 diabetics, mortality was 68 percent lower in those who received the antioxidant vitamins.
The authors remark that the vitamins have synergistic activity, resulting in a reduction in reactive oxygen species formation in heart attack patients. In diabetics, elevated blood sugar significantly increases reactive oxygen species, leading to increased endothelial damage and endothelium-derived nitric oxide inactivation. Additionally, these free radicals play a role in the development of diabetes.
“Early administration of appropriate doses of antioxidant vitamins C and E in diabetic patients with AMI seems to be particularly reasonable in view of increased reactive oxygen species formation in these patients,” the authors conclude. “This may explain the beneficial effects of antioxidant vitamins observed in our study.”
