What’s the point of it all? No, not life. Your daily multivitamin.
Over half of us take a multivitamin regularly for the purpose of improving our health. A slew of recent studies question whether they are doing us any good-or maybe even harm.
How Might Multi’s Help?
Here are some of the theories of how multivitamins may be beneficial:
1. Extra nutrients
2. A “safetey net” for nutrients that we may not get enough of
3. Reducing risk of chronic disease
The question remains: are these theories justified?
Most of the recent research says no. Let’s take a look at two of these recent studies to learn more.
Do They Work?
A recent paper published in the Archives of Internal Medicine set out to answer this very question. They took a look at the results from 12 studies that were previously published.
What they found was fairly inconsistent. Looking at the 12 studies individually, the results were all over the map. Some showed that multivitamins help prevent heart disease in men but not women, another would show the opposite. One study would show that women lived longer with a multivitamin while another would show no difference.
Combining the data was no help. The effect that a multivitamin had on reducing chronic disease risk or longevity was too small to conclude that it was anything more than chance. The authors concluded:
“Evidence is insufficient to prove the presence or absence of benefits from use of multivitamin and mineral supplements to prevent cancer and chronic disease”.
In other words: we’re not sure.
Why Don’t Multivitamins Work?
Another study, this one published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, looked primarily at who tends to use multivitamins. Although about 50% of Americans take a multi, that 50% is far from evenly distributed among the population. In fact, the 50% that tends to use them are the ones that need the extra nutrient boost the least.
Multivitamin users tend to be affluent, non-Hispanic white, have a lower BMI, and engage in a higher level of physical activity-the exact group that tends to get enough vitamins and minerals from foods. The authors of the study suggested that taking a multivitamin may actually be harmful to this group as they may be getting toxic amounts of vitamins from the combination of healthy diet and the multivitamin.
This may explain why multivitamins don’t fight disease or increase lifespan: the people who take them have already “maxed out” their benefit from vitamins and minerals. However, it would be interesting to see how a multivitamin would affect a group that ate poorly. It may be unlikely that a multivitamin could partially compensate for poor eating habits, but it’s a possibility.
Take Home Message
As of today, the research is far from conclusive on the effect of a multivitamin on health. Don’t hold your breath: the studies currently being done on multivitamin use are mostly observational. This means that even if they do find an effect, the results may not be reliable. In the future, we may see studies that are more reliable (called randomized control trials). Regardless of the type of study, because the multivitamin research tends to look at diseases that take years to develop and have a laundry list of risk factors, the final word on multivitamins may not happen during our lifetime.
In the meantime, I would recommend that unless you have a stellar diet, taking a multi is not going to hurt you and may actually be beneficial. Also, they are a great supplement for the recession (some are as low as $.10 a pill) and provide nutrients that Americans tend to not get enough of like Vitamin D, Calcium, Magnesium, and Potassium.
If you take a multivitamin, you may be wasting your money, but at least it’s not much.
Here are the full-text links to the multivitamin studies:
Archives of Internal Medicine Article
After years of research, Brian has set his sights on helping those with lower back pain. He serves on the Medical Nutrition Committee for The American Society for Nutrition and is a professional member of numerous research organizations including the International Association for The Study of Pain, American Chronic Pain Society, and The American Dietetic Association. He recently created a research-based lower back pain treatment program called The Back Pain Diet which is available from his website www.backpaindiet.com
I just saw that Walter Willet of Harvard University, who is probably the most knowledgeable person about nutrition on planet Earth, recommends a daily multivitamin.
You can see his take on the issue here:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/HEALTHbeat_120606.htm
Just so you know I do take multivitamins, antioxidants and various other supplements.
I just found this on the internet today.
Growing evidence that vitamins and antioxidants might actually be harmful..
http://www.slate.com/id/2240688
Hello! I want to say thanks for an interesting site about a subject I have had an interest in for a long time now. I have been lurking and reading the posts avidly so just wanted to express my thanks for providing me with some very good reading material. I look forward to more, and taking a more active part in the discussions here.
Hi… let me just chime in here about vitamin/mineral supplementation and nutrition support. I did go to the website listed above. I did not see that the author has had any professional clinical nutrition or functional medicine training. Speaking from my own experience and training, I FULLY support the use of nutrition support for several groups of people.
Let me restate my experience and education. I taught college level Nutrition for 10 years. I am a Registered Dietitian certified in Nutrition Support (with a focus on trauma and intensive care patients); Certified Clinical Nutritionist; CDR provider of continuing education; attended the Institute for Functional Medicine’s AFMCP (Applying Functional Medicine in Clinical Practice). I obtain a minimum of 15 credit hours per year in clinical nutrition and often obtain more than 20 per year.
SO, with a strong background in Clinical Nutrition and recent continuing education, trust me when I say that most Americans are less than “ideally healthy” and would benefit from AT LEAST a GOOD BALANCE multivitamin/mineral supplement, along with some targeted nutrition support if they are at less than an optimal level of health.
Considering the body’s increased need for nutrients utilized in detoxification, the prevalence of SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms that often create an increased demand for nutrients), AND the impact of Nutrigenomics (the study of how Nutrients modify gene expression and genes determine our nutrient needs)…I doubt there are many folks out there who would not benefit from nutrient supplementation. ALSO I must mention that NOT ALL SUPPLEMENTS ARE CREATED EQUAL. Consult a professional trained in clinical nutrition before you just pick something off the shelf! AND DON’T JUST PICK YOUR NUTRITION INFORMATION AND EDUCATION OFF THE SHELF. Investigate the credentials of ANYONE that you accept nutrition advice from!
Of course you can get a Nutrition Consultation right here at Metabolism.com!
http://www.metabolism.com/beth-ellen-diluglio/
Beth Ellen DiLuglio, MS, RD, CNSD, CCN, LD/N
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