Vitamin E and vitamin C supplement use and risk of incident Alzheimer disease

Oxidative stress may play a role in neurologic disease. The present study e xamined the relation between use of vitamin E and vitamin C and incident Al zheimer disease in a prospective study of 633 persons 65 years and older. A stratified random sample was selected from a disease-free population. At b aseline, all vitamin supplements taken in the previous 2 weeks were identif ied by direct inspection. After an average follow-up period of 4.3 years, 9 1 of the sample participants with vitamin information met accepted criteria for the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer disease. None of the 27 vitamin E supplement users had Alzheimer disease compared with 3.9 predicted based on the crude observed incidence among nonusers (p = 0.04) and 2.5 predicted b ased on age, sex, years of education, and length of follow-up interval (p = 0.23). None of the 23 vitamin C supplement users had Alzheimer disease com pared with 3.3 predicted based on the crude observed incidence among nonuse rs (p = 0.10) and 3.2 predicted adjusted for age, sex, education, and follo w-up, interval (p = 0.04). There was no relation between Alzheimer disease and use of multivitamins. These data suggest that use of the higher-dose vi tamin E and vitamin C supplements may lower the risk of Alzheimer disease.