eMedicineLive

Popping multivitamins to compensate for a deficient diet has become the norm of the day. In our fast paced life, we tend to neglect our diet. Taking multivitamins seems to be the easier way out. However, a new study had found that rather than preventing major chronic illnesses, multivitamins may be associated with increase in the mortality rate.

 

The Iowa Women’s Study was undertaken with the purpose of finding the long term implications of dietary supplements on the health of the participants. The researchers examined the use of vitamin and mineral supplements in 38, 772 women whose average age was 61.6 years at the start of the study in 1986. It was then correlated with   the total mortality rate. The participants reported the use of dietary supplements in 1986, 1997 and 2004. The researchers noticed a constant spurt in the use of multivitamins from 1986 to 2004, with the proportion of participants taking more than one supplement increasing from 63% to 85%. The total mortality, as on December 31, 2008, stood at 15, 594. The results of the study have been published in the journal "Archives of Internal Medicine."

 

The researchers found that the use of multivitamins, vitamin B₆, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc and copper were all associated with increased risk of total mortality compared to non use of these supplements. 41% of participants taking these dietary supplements on a regular basis died as compared to 40% of non users. After making adjustments for other confounding factors like diabetes, hypertension and obesity, the difference between the two groups became even more prominent. Only calcium, as a supplement was found to decrease the mortality rate. 37% of calcium users died compared to 43% of non users. The researchers also found that the total mortality risk was most obvious with iron supplements. Therefore, it is better to include as much fruits and vegetable sin your diet as possible instead of taking dietary supplements.

 

References:

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