Older women will be stunned by the news from researchers today. That there is no evidence that multivitamin use helps older women stave off heart disease and cancer. The dietary supplement industry for years has been saying just the opposite.
The two top killers of women are heart disease and cancer. And in recent years, the vitamin industry has been promoting its benefits when taken to prevent or ward off these diseases. However, the good news is that the use of multivitamins don't harm older women either.
"Women can be encouraged by the fact that these vitamins seem to do no harm, but they also seem to confer no benefit," said study co-author Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, a professor of epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.
"The kind of vitamins you get from diet is quite different, because foods are very complex and have a lot of chemicals we don't know about that interact with each other. [Eating a varied diet] is not the same as distilling it into a pill. The message is to eat a well-balanced diet, exercise and maintain weight."
Just a week ago, a different set of researchers gave a report that many healthy U.S. children and teens may be taking vitamins and mineral supplements needlessly. Even though there are children out there that need them and aren't getting them. Another blow to the dietary supplement industry also came down when recent studies suggested that vitamins B,C,D and E in addition to folic acid and beta carotene don't seem to have cancer-fighting abilities, especially in older women.
However, one expert is not giving up totally on the benefits of multivitamin use in older women.
"There are a lot of variables associated with this study, and unless there is an actual randomized, controlled trial, we can't say anything," said Rajat Sethi, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Texas A&M Health Science Center Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy in Kingsville. "There have been a mixture of studies where vitamins indeed have indirectly shown benefit."
And Andrew Shao, vice president for scientific and regulatory affairs at the Council for Responsible Nutrition, stated, "Multivitamins, like all other dietary supplements, are meant to be used as part of an overall healthy lifestyle; they are not intended to be magic bullets that will assure the prevention of chronic diseases, like cancer... From a practical standpoint, this study does not change the fact that the majority of consumers could benefit from taking an affordable multivitamin, particularly as the majority of Americans fail to consume the recommended amounts of a variety of essential nutrients established by the Institute of Medicine."
The multi-vitamin and dietary supplement industry is a $20 billion a year cash cow that shows half of Americans regularly using them.
The scientists agree that women who take vitamins and also participate in other healthy activities, may have better results.
“Consumers spend money on dietary supplements with the thought that they are going to improve their health, but there’s no evidence for this,” said Marian L. Neuhouser, the lead author and a nutritional epidemiologist with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “Buying more fruits and vegetables might be a better choice.”
Researchers observed 161,808 post-menopausal women participating in the government-sponsored Women's Health Initiative study. Participants were tracked for about eight years. Of those participating, 41.5 percent of them reported using multivitamins.
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
