Vitamins don't reduce stroke risk

Taking certain vitamins to reduce blood levels of homocysteine, an amino acid linked to heart disease, does not help prevent strokes, according to recent research. Another study has found that the presence of certain antibodies tied to clotting problems doesn't diminish the stroke-preventing benefits of blood thinning drugs like aspirin and Coumadin (warfarin).Researchers from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, assessed the stroke rate among 1814 subjects who took a high -or low- dose vitamin combination to bring down their homocysteine levels. Follow-up averaged about 20 months. Although the high-dose combination was better than the low-dose combination at reducing homocysteine levels, the stroke rate was nearly the same in both groups - about 8 percent.The researchers suggest that elevated homocysteine levels may represent a marker rather than a cause of vascular disease. Therefore, reducing such levels would have no effect on stroke risk. In the second study, researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, examined the 2-year rate of strokes and other clot-related problems in 1770 patients who had experienced a previous stroke and were treated with aspirin or Coumadin. Forty-one percent of the subjects had antiphospholipid antibodies, which have been linked to heart attack and stroke. During 2 years of follow-up, there was no evidence that aspirin or Coumadin was any less effective in preventing stroke in patients with antiphospholipid antibodies than in other subjects.

Findings of both the studies argue for a greater emphasis on research in stroke prevention and greater emphasis should be placed on other stroke risk reduction interventions, such as smoking cessation, exercise, and blood pressure control.

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