I’ve never taken vitamins, but plenty of people do. According to Johns Hopkins researchers, half of all American adults—including 70 percent of those age 65 and older—take a multivitamin or another vitamin or mineral supplement regularly. Their primary motivation is to prevent disease. The total price tag exceeds $12 billion per year. It’s a waste of money.
The most recent twenty-year study of 390,124 healthy adults, reported by The Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that taking a multivitamin daily was not associated with a lower risk of dying. Other studies have shown similar results:
- Research involving 450,000 people found that multivitamins did not reduce risk for heart disease or cancer.
- A study that tracked the mental functioning and multivitamin use of 5,947 men for 12 years found that multivitamins did not reduce risk for mental declines such as memory loss or slowed-down thinking.
- A study of 1,708 heart attack survivors who took a high-dose multivitamin or placebo for up to 55 months showed that rates of later heart attacks, heart surgeries and deaths were similar in the two groups.
Then there’s this: according to the U.S. Preventive Services
Task Force, beta-carotene and vitamin E supplements can be harmful, especially
at high doses. Beta-carotene may increase the risk of cancer and the risk
of death from heart disease or stroke. Vitamin E may promote tumor
formation and may cause nausea, diarrhea, intestinal cramps, fatigue, weakness,
headache, blurred vision, or rash.
Here’s an exception to avoiding vitamin supplements: Because
folic acid prevents neural tube defects in babies, experts recommend that women
take it before getting pregnant and during early pregnancy. Otherwise, as the
director of the Johns Hopkins Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and
Clinical Research says, “Pills are not a shortcut to better health and the
prevention of chronic diseases. You get all the vitamins and minerals you need
from food.”
For an introduction to this blog, see I Just Say No; for a list of blog topics, click the Topics tab.
My doctor told me vegans should take B12, because are diets might be deficient in that vitamin. Do you think there is anything to that?
ReplyDeleteI've been vegan since 2010. Taking B12 for that reason. I think there's good evidence that going vegan is associated with longer, healthier living. I just turned 89 and am still in real good health.
ReplyDelete