Healthcare

New study that conducted in Japan found that dietary intakes of vitamin B6 and folate may reduce the risk of heart failure in men and reduce the risk for mortality from stroke and any cardiovascular disease in women.

23,119 (men) and 25,611 (women) involved in Japan Collaborative Cohort study with the age between 40-79 years who completed food frequency questionnaires.

During those cohort study with 14 years median follow-up, the result as following;
- 986 participants death from stroke,
- 424 participants death from coronary heart disease,
- 2087 participants death from any cardiovascular disease.

Reported in Stroke on April 15th, 2010, by Renzhe Cui, MD, from the Graduate School of Medicine at Osaka University, Osaka, Japan, and colleagues, write, “This study is the first to show that high dietary intakes of folate and vitamin B6 were associated with a reduced risk of heart failure mortality for men.”

The significant protective effect from folate and vitamin B6 showed after adjustment the presence of cardiovascular risk factors and exclusion of supplement users by classified into quintiles from lowest vs highest quintiles for each nutrient as following;

A. Highest vs lowest quintiles hazard ratios of coronary heart disease;
- 0.62 for folate,
- 0.51 for vitamin B6,
- 1.35 for vitamin B12.

B. Highest vs lowest quintiles hazard ratios of heart failure;
- 0.76 for folate,
- 0.60 for vitamin B6,
- 1.57 for vitamin B12.

The researcher suggest that mechanism for the observed association may involve the effects of these vitamin intake on reduction of blood homocysteine concentrations.