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A major international trial to investigate
whether supplements of B vitamins can
protect people from a second stroke
received funding from the UK this month,
one of the 14 countries to participate.
The UK’s Medical Research Council has
awarded £280,000 (€403, 000) to fund
the UK arm of the Vitatops study that will
see up to 1,000 stroke patients recruited
from the UK.
The
trial aims to gather 8000 patients by the
end of the year. The patients will be
randomised in a double-blind study to
receive either supplements including
vitamin B12, B6 and folic acid or a
placebo daily for five years.
Recent
research has suggested that raised levels
of Homocysteine
in the blood may be a treatable cause of
the most common types of stroke. Small
doses of B vitamins have been shown to
lower these raised Homocysteine
levels.
If
the study shows that vitamin supplements
are effective, they will be a safe and
inexpensive treatment that can be given to
virtually every patient at risk of stroke.
First-time
stroke afflicts some 100,000 people every
year in the UK. People who have already
had a stroke are more likely than average
to have another.
Conventional
treatments to prevent further strokes are
targeted at lowering blood pressure and
include aspirin and cholesterol-lowering
drugs. For some patients, however, these
drugs are not cost-effective and for
others their side-effects make them
unsuitable.
The
UK’s coordinator Professor Kennedy Lees,
from the university of Glasgow’s
Department of Medicine and Therapeutics,
said: “Stroke
is the main cause of disability and one of
the main causes of death in the UK.
Affecting young people as well as the
elderly, stroke remains a substantial
burden for the patient, carers and
society."
"This
study is one of major public health
importance as the findings will have the
potential to benefit the lives of
thousands and to reduce costs to an
already over-burdened NHS [National Health
Service].”
The
study should help to clarify the role of
supplements in heart health. Numerous
studies have investigated whether folic
acid can prevent heart attacks but so far
results have been inconclusive.
Other
countries participating in the trial
include Australia, Austria, Brazil, Italy,
Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines,
Portugal, Republic of Georgia, Singapore,
Sri Lanka, US and Yugoslavia.
CONFUSED
BY MEDIA REPORTS OF DROPS FOR
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