Recent research into complementary medicines

Tuesday 8th December 2009 8:25am

Vitamin E and pregnancy

Recent Dutch research published in International journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology points towards some potential problems with high vitamin E levels during pregnancy. This included high dietary intake or through supplementation.

This research showed that mothers with high dietary Vitamin E intake had a 70% increased risk of having a child born with a heart defect. High dietary intake plus supplementation increased the risk up to 9 fold.

Vitamin D

Along with the well known effects of Vitamin D deficiency on bone deposition evidence is emerging that Vitamin D is important in many more areas than this.

Some Californian research found a link between low D levels and obesity although they weren’t able to come up with a reason why this might be so. It might be as simple as higher D levels might be an indicator of more time spent outside, presumably exercising. However there might be more to it.

Similarly, an English study found a correlation between low D levels and poor scores in a standardised assessment of mental function in people over the age of 65 years. Again no cause and effect could be guessed at and more work needs to be done here.

Migraine

A select group of people with a specific mutation in a gene that leads to migraine can get some relief with Vitamin B and folic acid supplementation. It appears that the defect increases levels of homocysteine in these people and the supplementation brings these levels down towards normal.