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Vitamin pills – The downside

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Vitamins and other food supplements taken by millions of women may actually put them at more risk, according to a major study.

Scientists say there is little evidence the pills do any good – and in fact some could be causing serious harm.

A study involving nearly 39,000 women has found multivitamins, vitamin B, folic acid, iron, magnesium and copper all increased the statistical risk of premature death.

Nearly a third of adults in Britain take some form of dietary supplement most days and the industry is worth £675million a year.

Some of the most popular pills include multivitamins, vitamin A, C and E, iron, folic acid and calcium – which are all thought to improve long-term health and ward off illnesses.

Scientists from Finland, Norway, the U.S. and South Korea looked at the long-term health effects of common vitamin pills and minerals on 38,772 women aged 55 to 69.

Over an 18-year period the women recorded any supplements they regularly took.

The results, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found copper increased the risk of dying prematurely by 18 per cent. Folic acid – which pregnant women are told to take to protect their child against spina bifida – increased risk of death by almost 6 per cent, while iron raised the risk by nearly 4 per cent.

Multivitamins raised the risk by 2.4 per cent, vitamin B6 by 4 per cent, magnesium by 3.6 per cent and zinc by 3 per cent.

The scientists do not fully understand how supplements may trigger early death, but they may interfere with the body’s natural defences. They say the supplements should only be taken by patients who are malnourished and only under the supervision of a doctor. Everyone else should ensure they eat a balanced diet to get adequate vitamins and minerals.

Vitamins

Vitamins

Jaakko Mursu, from the University of Eastern Finland, said: ‘Based on existing evidence, we see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements.

‘We recommend that they be used with strong medically-based cause, such as symptomatic nutrient deficiency disease.’

The results back up a major Danish study carried out at the University of Copenhagen in 2008 which found some vitamin supplements increase the risk of dying early by 16 per cent.

Last night experts dismissed the latest findings. They claimed many patients took supplements to treat underlying health problems – for example iron for anaemia – so were more likely to die early anyway.


Dr Glenys Jones, from the Medical Research Council’s Human Nutrition Research unit in Cambridge, said: ‘This observational study is interesting, but it does not show supplement use causes women to die earlier.’

Dr Carrie Ruxton, from the Health Supplements Information Service, which provides the public with information on vitamins and minerals, said: ‘Multivitamin supplements contain a variety of essential vitamins and minerals which help those with less healthy, or irregular diets, to meet recommended intakes of nutrients, thus ensuring the maintenance of normal health and well-being.

‘The findings should be treated with extreme caution given the poor methodology and lack of reliable information about the health of participants, or the type of diets consumed.

‘As there is no credible biological reason why normal supplement use should impact on mortality, it is likely these findings represent an effect of age and ill-health rather than supplement use.’

Are supplements worth it?

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More than half of Americans take dietary supplements, with the multivitamin being the most commonly used, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Between 1988 and 1994, 42 percent of the U.S. population said they took at least one dietary supplement. That increased to 53 percent between 2003 and 2006, the report says.

But do these pills really have the power to make you healthier?

Despite their ubiquity, there is no evidence that taking a multivitamin regularly has the ability to ward off chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, said Roberta Anding, a registered dietician and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

In general, it’s better to get vitamins from food rather than in supplement form. The whole food likely contains other nutrients that are healthy, such as the pigments that give tomatoes their red color, Anding said.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t take a multivitamin if you want to. But these pills should be viewed as exactly what their name suggests — a supplement to a healthy diet, and not the basis for one.

“If you want an insurance policy, I don’t think there’s any harm” in taking a multivitamin, Anding said. “If it’s not an insurance policy, but you’re trying to use it as the glue that holds together a poor diet — it’s not that,” she said.

A diet high in fruits, vegetables and whole grains has been linked to a decreased risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, among other diseases. The same can’t be said for supplements.

“Whole foods trump supplements in our quest to live better and longer,” said Katherine Tallmadge, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.

Supplements

Supplements

Some nutrients, such as vitamin E found in nuts, are absorbed better by your body when they are consumed in their natural form as opposed to supplement form, Anding said.

On the flip side, nutrients such as folic acid are actually absorbed better in supplement form, she said.

But whole foods have the edge when it comes to other potentially beneficial nutrients, such as pigments and indoles, a compound found in vegetables such as cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, Anding said.

“There are so many nutrients we haven’t even discovered yet,” Tallmadge said.

There are cases in which people may need to take dietary supplements because it can be difficult to get enough of certain vitamins and minerals through natural sources alone.

For example, our bodies make vitamin D from exposure to sunlight. But people who live in regions that don’t get a lot of sun might need a supplement to ensure they get adequate levels of this vitamin.

In addition, it’s recommended that women who are pregnant or are thinking about becoming pregnant take a folic acid supplement to prevent anemia and certain birth defects, according to the National Women’s Health Information Center.


There are a few risks to taking supplements. Several vitamins can impact the effectiveness of medications. For instance, vitamin C may interfere with the ability of chemotherapy drugs to work, Anding said. Also, if an individual takes too many minerals at once, the minerals may compete with each other in the body and lead to a deficiency in one of these minerals, Tallmadge said.

If people choose to take supplements, Anding recommends they take ones that provide 100 percent of the daily value for a particular vitamin, rather than high potency vitamins, which often supply a much higher dose of vitamins than you need in a day.

Taking supplements may also lead people to believe they are immune to the hazards of eating junk food or getting too little exercise, as was suggested by a recent study.

“They want to be able to eat their french fries and their ice cream and not have to worry about a healthy diet,” Tallmadge said. “And just take supplements to make up for it. There’s no evidence that they will.”

She notes three-quarters of Americans are overweight or obese. “Clearly, those supplements aren’t helping much,” Tallmadge said.

A person’s lifestyle and overall diet make the most difference in terms of the major chronic illnesses that afflict Americans, she said.