Book Reviews

definite statement about both the dose and mode of delivery of vitamin E for cardiovascular disease prevention. Unlike the difficulties of randomizing individuals to certain diets, randomization to a particular drug—whether it is a high dose vitamin E supplement, hormone replacement therapy or a new antihypertensive—is more straightforward and a randomized controlled trial would be a valuable way to test the author’s hypothesis. A recent meta-analysis identified seven large-scale well-conducted randomized trials of the effectiveness of vitamin E supplementation in the treatment and prevention of cardiovascular disease.1 Of the seven trials, six showed no effect of vitamin E on cardiovascular disease. The pooled estimate of effect from these trials suggested that vitamin E had neither a statistically significant nor a clinically important effect on any important cardiovascular event (odds ratio 0.98 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.94–1.03) all events combined) or its components (non-fatal myocardial infarction 1.00 (95 % CI 0.92–1.09); non-fatal stroke 1.03 (95 % CI 0.93–1.14); o