Vitamin E and Age-Related Cataract in a Randomized Trial of Women

Received 13 March 2007; received in revised form 8 June 2007; accepted 26 June 2007. published online 06 December 2007.

Objective

To investigate whether vitamin E supplementation decreases the risk of age-related cataract in women.

Design

Randomized, double-masked, placebo-controlled trial.

Participants

Thirty-nine thousand eight hundred seventy-six apparently healthy female health professionals aged 45 years or older.

Intervention

Participants were assigned randomly to receive either 600 IU natural-source vitamin E on alternate days or placebo and were followed up for presence of cataract for an average of 9.7 years.

Main Outcome Measure

Age-related cataract defined as an incident, age-related lens opacity, responsible for a reduction in best-corrected visual acuity to 20/30 or worse, based on self-report and confirmed by medical record review.

Results

There was no significant difference between the vitamin E and placebo groups in the incidence of cataract (1159 vs. 1217 cases; relative risk [RR], 0.96; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.88–1.04). In subgroup analyses of subtypes, there were no significant effects of vitamin E on the incidence of nuclear (1056 vs. 1127 cases; RR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.87–1.02), cortical (426 vs. 461 cases; RR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.81–1.06), or posterior subcapsular cataract (357 vs. 359 cases; RR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.86–1.16). Results were similar for extraction of cataract and subtypes. There was no modification of the lack of effect of vitamin E on cataract by baseline categories of age, cigarette smoking, multivitamin use, or several other possible risk factors for cataract.

Conclusions

These data from a large trial of apparently healthy female health professionals with 9.7 years of treatment and follow-up indicate that 600 IU natural-source vitamin E taken every other day provides no benefit for age-related cataract or subtypes.

Available online: December 11, 2007.

1 Division of Preventive Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.

2 Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.

3 National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

4 Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.

Correspondence to William G. Christen, ScD, 900 Commonwealth Avenue East, Boston, MA 02215-1204.

Manuscript no. 2007-347.

Supported by the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland (grant nos. CA 47988, HL 43851, EY 06633).

PII: S0161-6420(07)00747-6

doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2007.06.040

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