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PAPERS: Hugh R Taylor, Gabriella Tikellis, Luba D Robman, Catherine A McCarty, and John J McNeil Vitamin E supplementation and macular degeneration: randomised controlled trial BMJ 2002; 325: 11 [Abstract] [Full text]

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Comment on use of Vitamin E

David Potterton   (8 July 2002)

Re: Comment on use of Vitamin E

Hugh R Taylor   (9 July 2002)

Comment on use of Vitamin E 8 July 2002
David Potterton, Medical Journalist Reading, UK Send response to journal: Re: Comment on use of Vitamin E	The authors seem to be under the impression that they used vitamin E in their trial. In fact they used a pharmaceutical preparation that has no resemblance to the vitamin E found in food. They used a fraction of the vitamin (not the whole of the vitamin) suspended in an oil. This is poorly absorbed ie at least six times less than that from the vitamin E naturally found in food. A number of trials using pharmaceutical preparations of vitamin E in other fields of medicine have come to similar negative conclusions. I did not see any evidence that the authors checked to see how much of the preparation they were giving was actually absorbed. Nutritional medicine has moved on in recent years. It is advisable to use vitamins in a form that are as close to food as possible, otherwise the whole project can be a complete waste of time. No competing interests
Re: Comment on use of Vitamin E 9 July 2002
Hugh R Taylor, Professor University of Melbourne Send response to journal: Re: Re: Comment on use of Vitamin E	David Potterton in his comments on our recent paper suggests that the Vitamin E preparation that we used would not have been absorbed. He may have overlooked the section in our paper where we mention that we did measure Vitamin E levels and they were nearly doubled in the those who received Vitamin E, going from 39.4 micromol/ml to 63.8 micromol/ml.