In a new study, regular users of vitamin E were at decreased risk for death from Lou Gehrig’s disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), compared with nonusers. Given that vitamin E is an antioxidant, the new findings support the hypothesis that oxidants play a key role in the development of ALS. Moreover, the results are consistent with earlier findings showing that increased brain levels of vitamin E seem to delay the onset of ALS in lab animals. Still, use of another antioxidant, vitamin C, seemed to confer no protection against ALS, the report in the Annals of Neurology indicates.
