Plasma Vitamin E and Coenzyme Q10 Are Not Associated with a Lower Risk of Acute Myocardial Infarction in Singapore Chinese Adults

Vitamin E and coenzyme 010 (CoQ10) have antioxidant effects that may benefit cardiovascular health. Meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials have not shown a protective effect of supplementation with the vitamin E isomer a-tocopherol on the risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), but data on other isomers and CoQ10 are limited. Our objective was to examine the association of the plasma concentrations of vitamin E isomers (alpha-, gamma-, and delta-tocopherol and alpha-, gamma-, and delta-tocotrienol) and CoQ10 (ubiquinol and ubiquinone) with the incidence of AMI. We conducted a nested case-control study with 233 cases of incident AMI and 466 matched controls selected from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, aged 45-74 y at the time of recruitment and free of cardiovascular disease at the time of blood collection. We used conditional logistic regression to examine the association between vitamin E and CoQ10 and the risk of AMI adjusted for other risk factors. In the basic model, higher delta-tocopherol and ubiquinone concentrations were significantly associated with a higher risk of AMI, whereas there were no significant associations for the other vitamin E and CoQ10 isomers. After adjusting for lifestyle and other risk factors, only the association between delta-tocopherol and AMI risk remained significant [OR = 3.09 (95% Cl: 1.53, 6.25) highest vs. lowest quintile; P-trend = 0.028]. We did not observe an inverse association between plasma concentrations of vitamin E isomers or CoQ10 and risk of AMI in Singapore Chinese. In contrast, plasma delta-tocopherol concentrations were associated with a higher risk of AMI. Our findings do not support a role of higher vitamin E or CoQ10 intakes in the prevention of AMI. J. Nutr. 142: 1046-1052, 2012.