Should you keep taking that multivitamin?

Booster Shots

Oddities, musings and some news from the world of health.

 

by Karen Kaplan

The news about vitamins keeps getting worse.

A spate of high-profile studies published in the last few years showed that a variety of popular supplements -– including calcium, selenium and vitamins A, C and E –- didn't do anything to reduce the risk of developing heart disease, stroke or a variety of cancers. (A roundup on the studies can be found here.)

But what about multivitamins? These combination pills, which contain 10 to 30 vitamins and minerals, are the most popular dietary supplements sold in America. A report published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests they shouldn't be.

The study tracked 161,808 participants in the Women's Health Initiative, a long-term effort to identify risk factors for cancer, heart disease and bone health among postmenopausal women. Subjects hailed from all over the country and included white, black, Latina, Asian and Native American women. They were followed for an average of nearly eight years.

Overall, 41.5% of study participants took some version of a multivitamin. Those women were more likely to be white and college-educated, live in the West, exercise and have a lower body mass index.

However, they weren't any more likely to ward off a diagnosis of breast, ovarian, lung, stomach, bladder, kidney, colorectal or endometrial cancer compared with women who didn't take multivitamins. Nor were the pills helpful in preventing heart attacks, strokes, blood clots or the risk of death from any cause during the study period.

The research team, led by scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, did find one modest benefit: The 3,741 women who took stress multivitamins –- formulations with higher doses of several B vitamins along with an extra jolt of vitamin C -– were 25% less likely to have a heart attack. No other correlations between vitamins and health outcomes were statistically significant.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/02/should-you-keep.html

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