This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Citing articles on ISI (1)  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related letters  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Nutrition/ Malnutrition  • Statistics and Research Methods  • Alert me on articles by topic

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Based on their meta-analysis of antioxidant supplementation trials, Dr Bjelakovic and colleagues¹ conclude that some of the intervention nutrients appeared to be associated with increased mortality. Particular aspects of their approach, analysis, and reported findings may have led to incomplete or biased determinations of the real effect of such nutrients in various populations.

Although vitamin A is related to beta carotene (and other provitamin A carotenoids) by virtue of its in vivo formation through oxidative cleavage of the latter, it is not considered an antioxidant nutrient.² Its primary inclusion in the meta-analysis, except as an eligible trial cosupplement, is therefore surprising, with specific implications for the 2 trials that tested vitamin A only. Controlled trials of several other nonantioxidant vitamins could have been similarly included in the analysis along with those testing vitamin A.

Nearly half of the studies originally identified from the literature (405 of 815) . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Demetrius Albanes, MD
daa@nih.gov
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics
National Cancer Institute
Bethesda, Maryland

RELATED LETTERS

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality
Han-Yao Huang, Steven Teutsch, and Eric Bass
JAMA. 2007;298(4):400-401.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality
Harri Hemilä
JAMA. 2007;298(4):401.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality
Philip R. Taylor and Sanford Dawsey
JAMA. 2007;298(4):401-402.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

Antioxidant Supplements and Mortality—Reply
Lise Lotte Gluud, Goran Bjelakovic, Dimitrinka Nikolova, Rosa G. Simonetti, and Christian Gluud
JAMA. 2007;298(4):402-403.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

RELATED ARTICLE

Mortality in Randomized Trials of Antioxidant Supplements for Primary and Secondary Prevention: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Goran Bjelakovic, Dimitrinka Nikolova, Lise Lotte Gluud, Rosa G. Simonetti, and Christian Gluud
JAMA. 2007;297(8):842-857.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Vitamin Supplements and Cancer Prevention: Where Do Randomized Controlled Trials Stand?
Albanes
JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst 2009;101:2-4.
FULL TEXT