Vitamin B Supplements May Guard Against Stroke

Taking vitamin B supplements may help reduce your risk of stroke, a new review shows.

Previous research has yielded conflicting findings about whether taking vitamin B supplements affects the risk of stroke and heart attack. Some studies have concluded that taking vitamin B supplements may actually increase the risk, according to the review authors.

They analyzed the findings of 14 clinical trials that included a total of nearly 55,000 people. All of the trials compared vitamin B supplement use with a placebo or very low-dose vitamin B.

The participants were followed for a minimum of six months. There were a total of nearly 2,500 strokes among the participants in the studies, all of which showed some benefit of taking vitamin B.

Overall, vitamin B supplements reduced the risk of stroke by 7 percent, but did not appear to reduce the severity of strokes or the risk of death from stroke, according to the review, which was published in the Sept. 18 online issue of the journal Neurology.  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_140788.html