It Looks Like Women Can Stop Those B-Vitamins - At Least From the Cardiac Standpoint

At the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Chicago this morning, investigators from the Women's Antioxidant and Folic Acid Cardiovascular Study (WAFACS) reported that women at high risk of heart disease obtained no benefit from taking daily doses of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12.

It has long been postulated that taking these vitamins - by their ability to reduce blood levels of the purported cardiac risk factor, homocysteine - would lower the incidence of heart attacks and stroke in women. (Women tend to have higher levels of homocysteine than men.) However, at least 3 previous clinical trials have shown no benefit from taking these vitamins. WAFACS was designed to be large enough to give a definitive answer to this question.

In WAFACS, over 5000 women with either preexisting heart disease or at least 3 major risk factors for heart disease were randomized to take either these three vitamins or placebo. After several years of follow-up, not a hint of cardiovascular benefit was seen in women taking these vitamins, either among the entire group or in any subset of these women. Homocysteine levels, however, were dutifully reduced.

The WAFACS trial, especially when considered in addition to the results from the previous randomized studies, does indeed seem to have answered the question pretty definitively: Women who are at high risk for cardiovascular disease receive no benefit from taking a combination of folic acid, B6 and B12, various advertisements that may appear elsewhere on this page notwithstanding.