NEW YORK, April 29 (UPI) -- Vitamin E appears to be more effective in treating obesity-associated chronic liver disease than a prescription drug, U.S. researchers found.
Dr. Joel Lavine, now a faculty member at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and of NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, in the 1990s began vitamin E research for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, a liver disease that can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and death.
The placebo-controlled randomized trial randomly assigned 247 non-diabetic adults in nine medical centers with biopsy-confirmed non-alcoholic steatohepatitis to take either vitamin E, the drug pioglitazone or a placebo.
"There is an increasing prevalence of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in this country, something that is directly related to the obesity epidemic," study co-author Lavine said in a statement.
"The good news is that this study showed that cheap and readily available vitamin E can help many of those with the condition. We also looked at the drug pioglitazone, which showed some benefits, although not as dramatic as with vitamin E."
The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
