Multivitamins don’t help longevity: Study

A US study has suggested that regular multivitamin doses do not improve someone’s longevity, and instead found a higher mortality rate for those on supplements.
 
In the United States, nearly one in three adults report multivitamin use, with usage being higher among older adults, women and those with a college education.
 
The study used 20 years of data, from 390,124 generally healthy US adults, and showed no obvious benefit to daily multivitamin use in the study.
 
‘The results of the time-varying analysis, incorporating a second multivitamin use assessment, were consistent with the pooled baseline estimates and support our conclusion of no mortality benefit,’ it reads.
 
The study shows that those on daily multivitamins ‘were associated with a 4% higher mortality risk’.
 
‘It could be argued that those who are sick or older than 65 years are more likely to initiate multivitamin use,’ it says.
 
‘This phenomenon could result in a noncausal positive association, since these individuals have a higher risk of mortality than their healthier or younger counterparts.’
 
None of the participants had any history of major chronic disease.
 
Lennox Heads GP Daniel Ewald, who has a special interest in evidence-based healthcare, says the findings are ‘not at all surprising’.
 
‘It’s consistent with a number of other studies that have tried to look at the critical outcomes from nutritional supplements and they haven’t shown a benefit in general,’ he told newsGP.
 
‘Unless there’s a clearly definable micronutrient deficiency, I’m not going to be expecting to gain anything by giving extra doses of vitamins in some hope that it will have some extra therapeutic benefit.’
 
Dr Ewald said he would avoid recommending vitamins unless ‘you really want to have expensive urine’.
 
He said the exploratory study could help inform patients, but it would’ve been limited.
 
‘It’s not a study that was ever going to deliver pretty high-quality evidence for multivitamins as an intervention,’ he said.
 
Log in below to join the conversation.

health healthcare life expectancy multivitamins vitamins