Micronutrient supplementation improves heart function and quality-of-life in elderly patients with chronic heart failure, according to a report from investigators in Germany and the UK.

“The vitamin story has been confused with studies examining the response to single vitamin supplements in relatively low-risk patients,” said Dr. Klaus K. A. Witte from Castle Hill Hospital, Cottingham.

On the other hand, “CHF patients are at higher risk and might have multiple deficiencies. Replacing just one micronutrient might expose deficiency elsewhere (the vitamin E and C interaction, for example), so a combination is important,” Witte explained.

He and his and colleagues investigated the effects of long-term multiple micronutrient supplementation in 32 patients older than age 70 years with stable heart failure.

After an average of 295 days, the patients who had been assigned to get micronutrient supplements experienced significant improvements in cardiac pumping ability, the team reports in the European Heart Journal.

Also, patients taking micronutrients had an increase in their quality-of-life score, whereas the participants who had been given placebo supplements had a decrease in their quality-of-life score.

The differences in overall quality-of-life score were mainly due to improvements in scores for breathlessness on exertion, quality of sleep, and daytime concentration among the patients taking micronutrients.

“At present there are few supplements that include the constituents we used,” Witte said. “I would generally recommend a combined multivitamin supplement along with zinc, copper, and selenium. I also feel strongly that a high dose Coenzyme-Q10 is important. Most currently available supplements do not have enough Co-Q10.”

SOURCE: European Heart Journal, November 2005.