MICHELE NORRIS, host:
The largest and longest study of heart disease and cancer prevention in healthy women came out today. It's in the Journal of the American Medical Association. And the results will disappoint those who hope that taking a pill or two every day can prevent heart disease and cancer. NPR's Richard Knox reports.
RICHARD KNOX reporting:
There were lots of reasons to think that vitamin E and aspirin could prevent heart disease and cancer. Animal research suggested it. Studies of people who did or didn't take daily vitamin E supplements or aspirin seemed to show it. And there was no particular reason to think that men and women would differ. But now a 10-year study of 40,000 middle-aged women has found otherwise. The women's health study randomly assigned women to take the two kinds of pills or placebos. In medical research, this kind of study is the gold standard.
Let's take the vitamin E results first. Women under 65 who took a standard dose of vitamin E, 600 units every other day, did not have fewer heart attacks, heart attack deaths or strokes, and they had no reduction in cancer. I-Min Lee of Harvard was one of the researchers.
Ms. I-MIN LEE (Harvard University): My bottom line would be to tell healthy women that in terms of protecting themselves against heart disease and cancer, vitamin E supplements are unlikely to do it for them.
KNOX: Women over 65 seemed to be an exception. They had 26 percent fewer heart attacks and cardiovascular deaths. But since this runs counter to the rest of the evidence, Lee says it needs to be studied further.
Ms. LEE: With more people going into the age group 65-plus as baby boomers age, I believe this will be a potentially important finding if it turns out to be real.
KNOX: The evidence on aspirin is equally deflating. Women's health study researchers already published in March that a low dose of aspirin every other day did not lower women's risk of heart attack or heart-related death, although it did reduce the risk of stroke. This is in contrast to men. Regular baby aspirin does lower their risk of heart attacks but not strokes. Nancy Cook, another study author, says aspirin also doesn't seem to lower women's risk of cancer.
Ms. NANCY COOK (Study Author): We found no overall effect of low-dose aspirin on cancer in general or on breast cancer or colorectal cancer.
KNOX: A possible exception is lung cancer.
Ms. COOK: We did find a 22 percent reduction in lung cancer incidence and a 30 percent reduction in lung cancer mortality, but that would need to be confirmed since our results weren't exactly definitive.
KNOX: That is, the lung cancer results aren't statistically strong.
I-Min Lee of Harvard says the news may discourage millions of women who had hoped for a simple and low-risk way of preventing heart disease and cancer.
Ms. LEE: I think it is disappointing because honestly it's a lot easier for any of us to say, you know, I'll just take a pill and I'll be healthier. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out that way.
KNOX: But Julie Buring of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston says the $40 million study was still well worth it. Buring directed the study.
Ms. JULIE BURING (Brigham and Women's Hospital): It's very important for us to know what works as well as what doesn't work. Sometimes we make a choice and take something thinking it will benefit us, but we might be doing it instead of something else.
KNOX: Like exercise, eat sensibly, watch your weight, stop smoking, get your blood pressure and cholesterol under control. In other words, the same old same old. Richard Knox, NPR News.
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