Daily HealthBeat Tip

Good for something

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Just because something's good, doesn't mean it's good for everything. And aspirin and vitamin E could be cases in point. Let's look at aspirin first. In men, as well as in women age 65 years and older, low-dose aspirin can trim the risk of heart disease. And researchers had reason to think aspirin could reduce the risk of cancer.

Researchers also suspected vitamin E supplements could cut the risks of both cancer and heart disease.

But then scientists looked at what happened with almost 40,000 women in a study supported by the National Institutes of Health. Two reports by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital are in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researcher I-Min Lee:

"Vitamin E supplementation had no overall benefits in terms of preventing heart disease and cancer in healthy women." (eight seconds)

A separate report found no benefit against cancer from aspirin.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: December 7, 2005

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