Beta-Carotene Halves Heart Attack Risk

In yet another twist to the ongoing beta-carotene controversy, a large-scale diet study finds that high intakes of beta-carotene cut heart attack risk in half for older people.

The analysis, conducted as part of the Rotterdam Study by Kerstin Klipstein-Grobusch of Erasmus University Medical School in Rotterdam, Netherlands, assessed the diets of 4,802 Dutch men and women in 1990. The subjects, whose average age was 77, were divided into groups based on their antioxidant intake. During the next four years, 173 of the people in the study had heart attacks.

People in the top third of the group for beta-carotene intake from food (2.11 mg/day), had only 55 percent the risk of a heart attack as those in the bottom third (0.84 mg/day). When beta-carotene intakes from foods and supplements were combined, the risk dipped to 49 percent.

The drop in risk was even more impressive for former smokers. Those with the highest beta-carotene intake had only 33 percent of the heart attack risk as former smokers who consumed little beta-carotene.

Researchers found no statistical correlation between vitamin C or E intake and heart attack risk. However, these results are at odds with other research that has found vitamin E, but not beta-carotene, reduces heart attack risk. The authors suggest that beta-carotene supplements may have been given too late to be effective in previous studies.

—American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1999 Feb;69(2):261-6