Research
Micronutrients & recovery
Subgroup analyses suggesting benefits from specific vitamins (e.g., Vitamin B6 for cardiovascular death, Vitamin E for myocardial infarction) were artifacts of trials funded or supplied by the pharmaceutical industry and disappeared in high-quality trials.
Be skeptical of claims that specific vitamins like B6 or E prevent heart attacks or death. This analysis shows these benefits only appear in studies funded or supplied by the pharmaceutical industry. When looking at high-quality, independent trials, these benefits disappear.
StrongQualifiesHIGH confidence
even though supplementation with vitamin B6 was associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular death in high quality trials, and vitamin E supplementation with a decreased risk of myocardial infarction, those beneficial effects were seen only in randomised controlled trials in which the supplements were supplied by the pharmaceutical industry.
Why this rating
Based on subgroup analysis within a high-quality meta-analysis.
Source
Efficacy of vitamin and antioxidant supplements in prevention of cardiovascular disease: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials
Seung‐Kwon Myung et al. · BMJ · 2013
DOI 10.1136/bmj.f10
Meta-analysis · 50 studiesCited 463×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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