Tissue Recovery

J Nutr. 2003 Sep;133(9):2863-7.

The use of B vitamin supplements and peripheral arterial disease risk in men are inversely related.

Merchant AT, Hu FB, Spiegelman D, Willett WC, Rimm EB, Ascherio A.

Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA. amerchan@hsph.harvard.edu

Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) causes morbidity and is associated with mortality. B vitamin intake has been inversely associated with coronary heart disease, but their effects on PAD are not known. We examined prospectively the relationships between dietary folate, vitamin B-6 and B-12 and PAD risk in 51529 male U.S. health professionals, aged 40 to 75 y, who answered a detailed 131-item questionnaire to assess diet and vitamin supplement use. The study population consisted of 46036 men free of PAD, cardiovascular disease and diabetes at baseline followed for 12 y during which we documented 308 incident PAD cases. For every 400 microg/d increment of folate intake, the multivariate adjusted PAD risk decreased by 21% [relative risk (RR) = 0.79, 95% CI 0.64-0.96]. Men in the top category of folate intake (median = 840 micro g) were at 33% lower risk of PAD than men in the bottom category (median = 244 microg) (RR = 0.67, 95% CI 0.45-0.96, P-value, test for trend = 0.03) after multivariate adjustment. There were weak inverse associations between intake of vitamin B-6 and PAD risk (RR = 0.70, 95% CI 0.48-1.02, P-value, test for trend = 0.06) and B-12 (RR = 0.77, 95% CI 0.54-1.11, P-value, test for trend = 0.12). These results suggest that higher consumption of folate may contribute to the prevention of PAD.

PMID: 12949378 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]