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

supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[jaymz666]

yeah, and those that don't get a balanced diet?

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

yeah, and those that don't get a balanced diet?

Like me. I live alone, and so I don't cook very often. Mostly I get home from work, heat something up quickly and that is dinner.
I started on a daily multivitamin about a year ago, and have since generally felt better. For the minimal expense I will stick with my daily multivitamin.
YMMV.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[EmagGeek]

SHHHH! Case closed! Stop asking questions.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[girlintraining]

yeah, and those that don't get a balanced diet?

Reduce funding to supplimental assistance, call them lazy, imply that obesity and poor health is a moral failing, and that prayer is an effective medical treatment.

Duh... what are you, some kind of non-american? :/

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[msobkow]

Exactly. A $12 bottle of multivitamins every two months is a heck of a lot cheaper than fresh produce. And when you're on a disability budget, there is no where near enough money for a "healthy" diet.

Hell, I ate better in university than I do nowadays.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[vidnet]

A $12 bottle of multivitamins every two months is a heck of a lot cheaper than fresh produce

You're saying that as if the two are in any way equivalent.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[Anonymous Coward]

Our foods, even junk foods, are highly fortified. They have been for almost a hundred years. At one time a large percentage of American adults had real nutrient deficiencies, leading to deformities, vision problems, and most visibly skin conditions. The government fixed all of that by adulterating our food, and they continue to do that (unless you buy "organic" dry food stuffs).

If you feel better because of a multivitamin, it's almost certainly because of a single vitamin deficiency. Probably vitamin D, which is common and which can cause depression. A blood workup probably would have shown.

Multivitamins are mostly packed with stuff you don't need and aren't deficient in, even if all you eat is junk food all day.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[cayenne8]

Like me. I live alone, and so I don't cook very often. Mostly I get home from work, heat something up quickly and that is dinner.

Try this...

Try dedicating some Sundays, to cooking...do it for the week. I often cook 2-3 main dishes, maybe 2-3 sides...or one thing I like, is to grill a bunch of stuff, meats, veggies and just bag them. Then during the week, you can put them together in quick and interesting ways for lunches and dinners all week long.

Say you make up some hummus, and grill some veggies (eggplant, zucchini, onions, etc) and some chicken. A quick week night meal, is get some pita bread, spread on some hummus, and the veggies and chicken and there ya go. Next night, make a quick salad, throw in grilled, marinated veggies and whatever..etc. Doing stuff like that works well and make for easy throw together meals all week long (and lunches). I'd much rather do this than eat fast food, eat better, and with the money you save, treat yourself out every once in awhile to a finer dining experience, and get out and meet some girls. Do this...and then cook for them at your home, etc. All pluses!!

But I digress....cooking and eating this way cheaper and more nutritional, and hey..is kinda fun to spend a sunday with a couple of cocktails, throw on some tunes or some TV in the background and cook a bit.

One thing you might try too, is check the grocery store ads in your town, and see what's on sale and plan to cook around that. This way, you save money AND, most importantly, it keeps you from getting in a rut of cooking and eating the same thing day after day after day....

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

[cayenne8]

Exactly. A $12 bottle of multivitamins every two months is a heck of a lot cheaper than fresh produce. And when you're on a disability budget, there is no where near enough money for a "healthy" diet.

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

I cook most everything at home, and I've done it for awhile, even on very restricted budgets. But you have to buy raw ingredients (not preprocessed) and cut and cook them yourself.

Start by seeing what is on sale at the various grocery stores each week, and build your menu around those. I often hit 2-4 stores each week buying the sale items and going from there.

Buy what veggies and fruits are in season, those are usually the cheapest and best for you.

Doing things like that, can really help you eat healthier and cheaper than dining on preprocessed crap which will kill you in the long run. Also, find the days on which they mark down meats for quick sale, that's a good one. Hell, one time in college, studying for finals, I took a break to cook a late night snack...while a friend was coming over.

He came over with a pizza, and I was eating veal chops in a champagne cream sauce, and my meal cost far less than his....

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[kylemonger]

Well, no, they aren't equivalent but they can, for example, be the difference between general good health and having your teeth rocking in their sockets from scurvy if you can't afford the produce. Vitamin C is also important for connective tissue repair, which means that if you do hard manual labor, a supplement can produce a huge difference in your day-to-day quality of life for a whole lot less money than the produce.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[cayenne8]

Healthy foods are not cheaper. You can get a full meal from mcdonalds for under $4.

If you buy things that are on sale and in season, you can easily make meals that are in the $4 per meal and much better for you than McD's.

Hell, buy a bag of dried beans, onion, meat, etc....make a pot of chili that you can eat on for 5+ meals and it is in that range.

Make a big salad, and grill some chicken that was on sale...you can get several meals out of that for that price range, and is much healthier for you.

And no, it doesn't go bad in a day or two. Buy what's on sale each week and work from there.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[Fjandr]

They're conflating "cheaper" with "requires not being lazy."

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[queazocotal]

You can use pills to get girls into bed with you - but you generally have to crush them up so they're not noticed.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[nblender]

I don't really mean to life-coach you or anything but the benefits you will reap from learning how to cook and cooking your own meals is enormous. Not only will you be healthier, but you will meet eligible mates at the grocery store; and you will find yourself more interesting to potential mates if you can invite them over and make an absolutely amazing meal... My dad taught me how to cook and I'm now the creative cook in the family... My son has been helping to cook since he was 8 and now that he's 12, he is in charge of one meal every week. He makes things like schnitzel, pork roast, chilli, lasagna, stroganoff, etc...

 

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[houghi]

I live alone and I cook about 5 or 6 times a week. The other 1 or 2 I go to a restaurant (Real one, not fast food) with friends. I spend almost no time on cooking as most of the time I cook the ultimate 'fast food' using a wok.

I bought a Wok cookbook at a second hand store and started cooking. Takes about 10-15 minutes to prepare my dinner (including prep time) and I use fresh vegetables and meat.

For work I prepare salads withe iceberg salad and make 5 of them on the Sunday. The iceberg salad is so it stays fresh. For those 5 I take about 20 minutes to one hour, depending on my mood.

So that is not even 2 hours per week I spend cooking.

The most important part of all this is planning. I started by writing down what I would eat for the whole week and bought accordingly. I now have enough experience that my shopping-list looks like:
2 crops iceberg
5 x for salad (e.g. for 5 days, smoked salmon, shrimps, tuna, mozzarella, ... Adding tomatoes and onions and the like if needed)
1 chicken filet (Good for 2 or 3 days wok)
1 x fish
1 x veal
1 x pork
1 x bag mixed vegetables for wok
2 x different vegetables

Then if needed different sorts of rice, different sorts of noodles, soya sauce, garlic, coriander, pipe onion, eggs.

I only need to do groceries once per week, so no time loss there either.

To me cooking each day is better then re-heating food. the sole thing that helped me do this was the planning part. Writing down what I was going to eat the coming week. That and buying a book about cooking with a wok and the looking for combinations that would taste good AND are fast to do.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Wow....where do you live where junk food is cheaper than healthy, home cooked veggies, etc?
I cook most everything at home, and I've done it for awhile, even on very restricted budgets. But you have to buy raw ingredients (not preprocessed) and cut and cook them yourself.

There is no such thing as equal availability of food in the US. Please read up on the Supermarket Gap and how it affects the diets of the urban poor and minority areas:

Studies show that cost is the most significant predictor of dietary choices, so healthy eating is especially difficult for the poor, for whom healthier foods are generally unaffordable.[4] Meanwhile, supermarkets generally provide food at cheaper prices than the bodegas and pharmacies that service inner-city areas. A study that compared supermarkets, neighborhood groceries, convenience stores, and health food stores in San Diego, California found that supermarkets had twice the average number of 'heart-healthy' foods compared to neighborhood grocery stores and four times the average number of such foods compared to convenience stores.[5] In many American cities, an urban grocery gap has caused a lack of access to healthy foods, high prices for the healthy foods that are available, and the health problems that result from an unhealthy diet.

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:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[LF11]

Not really. Vitamin absorption is a complicated topic.

For example, in the case of just calcium:

* Phytic acid (whole grain cereals) inhibits uptake
* Long chain fatty acids (animal fats, including butter) inhibit uptake
* Vitamin C promotes uptake
* Vitamin D promotes uptake
* Protein promotes uptake

Now calcium-fortified cow's milk is very interesting. Because of the need to buffer animal protein with an alkaline buffer during digestion, drinking milk -- including calcium-fortified milk -- tends to actually remove calcium from the body. This is not the case for human milk because the calcium/protein ratio is different, but if you need to supplement calcium, consuming cow's milk is not a good method.

On the other hand, regarding iron:

* Calcium (and zinc, eggs, tea, coffee) inhibit uptake
* Vegetable protein inhibits uptake
* Vitamin C promotes uptake (same as with calcium)
* Copper promotes uptake

Iron is divided into two types: haem (from hemoglobin, i.e. animals) and non-haem. Haem iron is considerably easier for the body to absorb, but if you supplement non-haem iron with vitamin C, you get a very similar absorption rate as haem iron without vitamin C.

Nutrition is a very complicated topic. Every nutrient is different.

It seems that eating a balanced diet (including animal protein but not much animal protein) is actually a pretty good way to obtain most of the vitamins and minerals you need. If you need to supplement, you should definitely look up what factors promote or inhibit absorption.

Yes, many multivitamins contain non-digestible forms of vitamins. My favorites are iron oxide (rust) and calcium carbonate. Those are essentially non-absorbable forms of those minerals. Cheap vitamins have iron oxide and calcium carbonate. Expensive vitamins (sometimes, occasionally) have better forms. Generall, minerals in the form of an ionic salt are barely usable by the body.

I am unaware of the body becoming lazy with regards to absorbing vitamins, so I can't comment on that. However, it is a good idea to stop taking all vitamins at least once a week. If there is a "memory effect", this will help to reset things so the body does not become acclimatized/insular to a certain nutritional profile.

It is better to consume low doses of vitamins over a long period of time, than to sporadically consume large quantities. If I only ate fresh produce one week out of 3, I would consume a multivitamin over the course of the second two weeks.

It is a good idea to mix up multivitamins. Not all are the same, and your body's nutritional needs change over time. Semi-regular changes in multivitamin formulas can help satisfy any low-level deficiencies that might otherwise accumulate.

That is the philosophy I generally follow with multivitamins. I encourage you to read and learn as much as you can. The topic is immense. There is an unfortunate amount of bullshit in the field, but there is also plenty of good research.

Re:supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults

[ljw1004]

How do you get $4.50 ?

1 apple = 75c at Trader Joe's, 50c at local second-rate produce stall

4oz lentils (protein) = 22c at Amazon

1lb other seasonal veg = 75c

"Well Nourished"

[nurb432]

No kidding.. but for those that are not, ( which is a LOT of people.. ) vitamins can help.

Re:"Well Nourished"

[jaymz666]

exactly.

The qualifier is stupid. If you are well nourished you don't need to supplement anything. But if you aren't lucky enough to be able to have the time to prepare your own perfect meal every day, then you may need something.

terrible title

[larry bagina]

Not slashdot's fault, this time. The real conclusion is that multivitamins don't cure heart disease. But who takes them to cure heart disease?

My rock might be useless at keeping tigers away but it's useful for throwing at glass houses.

The best way to make a choice about supplements

[QilessQi]

In my opinion, the best way to make an informed choice about supplements is to have your doctor do blood work when you get a physical exam (which you should be doing yearly once you hit middle age). Labs can test for key things like iron, B vitamins, vitamin D, etc.

Your doctor can then ask you questions to help interpret the results. If your D is low, do you get a lot of sunlight or do you spend most of your time indoors? If your iron is low, do you feel tired or mostly energetic? What sorts of things do you eat?

Based on that personalized information, supplements or other dietary/lifestyle changes can improve your health, certainly far more than grabbing a random bottle of multivitamins at GNC.

Precisely no surprise

[SheldonYoung]

“... supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit...”

This is a great example of how a precise statement by a researcher is misinterpreted or misrepresented when presented to the general public. The above statement is a useful result with a well-defined meaning which is being used in a context that makes it sound like supplements have zero benefit. It's no surprise that that supplements have no clear benefit... when you are a "well-nourished adult'! The danger is that this result can cause people who are not well-nourished to stop taking supplements that may be keeping them outside of harm.

Writers looking to make a story where there isn't one cause much more harm than supplements ever could. (No facts were harmed in the making of that statement.)

Sure

[nospam007]

"doctors behind three new studies ..."

Doctors? Who cares what doctors say, what does Jenny McCarthy say?

source?

[globaljustin]

Our foods, even junk foods, are highly fortified.

at first read this seems counter to everything I've experienced..."highly fortified....for almost a hundred years"???

i know some products advertise that they have vitamins & some regulation took place, but those regulations were always fought by the industry as "government intervention that costs consumers"

also, i'm more skeptical of a Pepsi that says it has vitimin C that will help me than I am of a multivitamin

Re:source?

[Jane Q. Public]

"Except that vitamins are just 'fortifying' a unhealthy diet. What difference does it make if the vitamin is in the junk food or the pill?"

But that's kind of GP's point.

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.

I mean, it's like studying the eficacy of a smallpox vaccine on a population that is never exposed to smallpox. Guess what? It's going to show no significant benefit, and even maybe a little bit of harm.

Seriously, this looks like a good candidate paper for the Journal of Irreproducible Results. That is to say: like other papers they've published, it might be valid science, but who cares?

Re:source?

[pepty]

Salt is iodized.

Folic acid is added to bread, cereals, flour, etc.

Vitamin C is added to juice, along with most other things marketed to kids.

Niacin is added to bread.

Vitamin D and calcium are added to milk and other dairy products.

Cereals (especially sugary ones marketed to kids) are usually fortified with a dozen vitamins and minerals.

You probably won't end up with a vitamin deficiency from eating junk food so long as you don't eat the same few junk foods exclusively. What you'll end up with is a diet with way too much of the wrong stuff.

Re:source?

[nbauman]

There is ample evidence that cyclophosphamide can cure cancer

You, sir, are AN IDIOT.

Cyclophosphamide doesn't CURE anything, period.

Not true. Cyclophosphamide is used (as part of a treatment protocol) for acute lymphocytic leukemia. Childhood ALL has cure rates of ~ 95%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_lymphocytic_leukemia#Treatment

And here was I thinking that people on slashdot would know that (to date) the only thing that 'cures' you of cancer (and, I might add, a variety of other spectacularly nasty diseases) is death.

Not true. There are curable cancers. There was a small number of them, and the number is growing. The calculation of the cure rate depends on how you define cancer, early-stage cancer, and pre-cancer. But among the major cancers, early stage colon cancer is curable.

The usual definition of "cure" for cancer is that it will not return in your lifetime. If you're 75 years old, and the cancer won't come back for 20 years, and you die of something else, most people define that as cure. If you're male, you probably have prostate cancer, and that probably won't kill you either in your lifetime.

What is it about the Internet that makes people say, "You're an IDIOT!" when they hear something they don't agree with? Even when the person you're calling an idiot knows more about the subject than you do?

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.

Re: supplementing the diet of well-nourished adult

[jaymz666]

Time and effort is not free