Vitamin E and Selenium Do Not Slow Lung Function Decline - Study Shows

Vitamin supplementation is a hot topic in the alternative health world and within the general public as well.  In general, my clinical bias is strongly against supplementation particularly in the form of daily vitamins and/or in the if "they" say it's good for me, it's good for me ideology.  An article I wrote, Vitamins More Harm Than Good, discusses some of the reasoning behind this.  There have been a host of studies in recent years that have shown many of the anti-oxidative effects we were led to think certain vitamins had - that they either didn't promote those changes internally or they literally blocked the body from allowing more beneficial changes by functionally confusing the related mechanisms.  Now this isn't to say that all vitamins for all reasons are bad, but generally speaking a reasonable diet will get you much further and over supplementation has always shown long-term harmful effects in studies.

In this study the researchers were trying to evaluate the assumption that vitamin E and selenium intake would decrease oxidative damage and slow age-related declines in lung function - with particular emphasis on a cigarette smoker model.

The researchers recruited 1641 men who had multiple pulmonary function tests over a span of 3 years.  Using a randomized double-blind placebo-control model they found that the treatment group had "no main effect" on lung function.  The researchers concluded that "there was no effect of selenium and/or vitamin E supplementation on rate of lung function decline."  With current smokers, however, they found that there was a slight beneficial effect of selenium on airflow reduction.