Multivitamin Researchers Say 'Case Is Closed' As Studies Find No Health Benefits

schwit1 sends this excerpt from CBS: "'Enough' with the multivitamins already. That's the message from doctors behind three new studies and an editorial that tackled an oft-debated question in medicine: Do daily multivitamins make you healthier? After reviewing the available evidence and conducting new trials, the authors have come to a conclusion of 'no.' 'We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful,' concluded the authors of the editorial summarizing the new research papers, published Dec. 16 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. 'These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough.' They went on to urge consumers to not 'waste' their money on multivitamins."

Comments

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[Frobnicator]

Oh, yeah in those cases they are helpful. Or in cases where people's habits leave certain vitamins and minerals out. But never mind that. Just pay attention to my edgy new study and talk-show appearances.

As is frequently the case, the article is misleading and misinterpreting the scientists.

Also just like /. tends to do, the linked news article headline is sensationalized and exists just to get people to read the story.

The scientists talk about three specific things: (1) Preventing chronic disease, including heart disease and cancer, (2) preventing cognitive decline in seniors, and (3) high-dose pills to prevent subsequent events after a confirmed heart attack.

For those three specific things, multiple studies show they do not provide statistically significant benefits. They found that high doses of specific nutrients could slightly increase the risk of certain cancers in people pre-disposed to them, which is why they recommended against the multivitamins for those in good health.

Note that also in TFA they agree that there are some health benefits in specific cases. These include vitamin D in the elderly for bone strength, iron and folic acid for pregnant and nursing mothers (and in unrelated studies elsewhere, also in men wanting children), those with poor nutrition, and for other specific situations.

Note that the studies do not say multivitamins are worthless, nor does it address any other health areas except those three. That is just the headline sensationalism.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[Lumpy]

"Wow....where do you live where junk food is cheaper than healthy, home cooked veggies, etc?"

the united states.

A meal of fresh fruits and veggies plus protien = $4.50
A meal of Ramen noodles = $0.39
A meal of a hot dog cut up in the mac and cheese = $1.20

nearly 40% of Americans cant even afford the luxury meal of the hot dog in mac and cheese.

I am guessing you have zero idea as to what reality is for the bulk of the population, over 50% of your fellow Americans can not afford to eat healthy and a balanced diet.

Re:source?

[nbauman]

This study was done on people with "no nutritional deficiencies". Yet vitamins are intended as supplements for people with nutritional deficiencies. As such, this study doesn't really show what it appears to be showing.

Vitamin deficiency diseases are generally third-world diseases. The population of the U.S. has very little vitamin deficiency. It's not as if doctors see scurvey or rickets when they go out into the community.

When Americans do have vitamin deficiency, it's usually because of a disease, hereditary or acquired. For example, alcoholics get vitamin B deficiency.

The New England Journal of Medicine had a case of rickets a few years ago, and the patient was a mentally retarded child who ate a diet entirely of Pop-Tarts.

Here's another one http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm1205540 -- from the Ukraine. "In addition to a diet poor in vitamin D and calcium, the patient had a history of biliary dyskinesia, which may have contributed to poor absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamin D."

Here's another one http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp1113996 Autoimmune gastritis (pernicious anemia) is the most common cause of severe [vitamin B12] deficiency.

One major cause of vitamin deficiency is people on fad diets. The macrobiotic diet was one of the worst for that. Sometimes people couldn't follow the macrobiotic diet themselves, but they had an infant that they kept on a "strict" macrobiotic diet (by feeding them not much more than brown rice), and in a few cases the child died.

There are some stupid articles, like this one http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310306 that simply measured vitamin D blood levels, without consideration of whether they actually had clinical disease that made any difference to the patient's health. (It's like finding an elevated PSA or a lung spot that will never develop into cancer.) If you don't know how to read a journal article, you might misinterpret this to mean that there was a lot of vitamin D deficiency. But I can't find any studies that show clinical vitamin deficiency in Americans without specific diseases, since America was industrialized during WWII.

Here's an article by people who do understand the complexity of the problem http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp1009570 and here's what they say:

Randomized, controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation have addressed its effects on skeletal outcomes, but most of these trials involved supplementation with both vitamin D and calcium, making it impossible to separate out the effects attributable specifically to vitamin D.

I just spent half an hour trying to find an article in a peer-reviewed journal that describes vitamin deficiency in a population in the U.S. where the deficiency isn't the result of a serious disease, and I can't find one.

The only time Americans need vitamin supplements is when they're diagnosed with a specific disease that causes a specific deficiency. In that case, they should get treated with vitamins under the supervision of an MD. You have to find out the cause of the deficiency and treat it. Otherwise you could die. This isn't the kind of thing you can self-treat with Google searches.