Antioxidant Consumption and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: Emphasis on Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and β-Carotene

Abstract

Dietary recommendations aimed at reducing the risk of coronary heart disease have focused largely on the intake of nutrients that affect established risk factors, including plasma lipid and lipoprotein levels, blood pressure, and body weight. Recent developments in our understanding of the atherosclerotic process and factors that trigger ischemic events have led to the consideration of dietary constituents that may alter risk through other mechanisms. Prominent among these are antioxidants, which are proposed to inhibit multiple proatherogenic and prothrombotic oxidative events in the artery wall. This report provides a brief overview of evidence concerning a role for dietary antioxidants in disease prevention, with emphasis on studies in human populations, and describes a number of issues that should be resolved before it would be prudent to make recommendations regarding the prophylactic use of antioxidant supplements.