Vitamin E, an HRT Alternative?

Vitamin E, an HRT Alternative?

DENVER--The antioxidant that plays a large role in preventingconditions such as cancer and heart disease may have a new function to add toits repertoire. At ENDO 2001 (www.endo-society.org),the 83rd Annual Meeting of The Endocrine Society that took place here,researchers reported that bone loss occurring from lack of estrogen (caused bymenopause, hysterectomy) may benefit from vitamin E supplementation as much asfrom hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

Sunil Wimalawansa, from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center, and hiscolleagues used two animal groups to conduct eight-weeks of vitamin E treatmentcompared to conventional HRT therapy. The researchers found that vitamin E wasas effective and safer than HRT therapy. The next step is to study this effectin human trials.

This research supports previous findings that showed vitamin E improved bonedensity (BMD) in estrogen-poor women. Researchers from the University ofKebangsaan in Malaysia found that both palm vitamin E and alpha tocopherolmaintained BMD in ovariectomized rats (Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes 2000;108(4):305-10) (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).