Multivitamin, mineral supplements may not reduce heart disease, deaths
According to a new review published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, taking multivitamins and minerals may not reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or associated deaths.
Many U.S. adults take dietary supplements, with up to 70% of older adults aged 64 and older consuming at least one. Together, they account for sizable expenditure on vitamins and herbal supplements ($21 billion in 2015), all in hopes of preventing disease and improving health. However, according to a new review published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, taking multivitamins and minerals may not reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or associated deaths.
The researchers looked at data from 18 studies with more than 2 million participants to examine associations between multivitamin and mineral (MVM) supplementation and various cardiovascular problems, including coronary heart disease and stroke. They found that the use of MVM supplements was not associated with the risk of death from cardiovascular disease or coronary heart disease, or stroke incidence or deaths.
They were associated with a slightly lower risk of developing coronary heart disease, but this difference was observed only in studies that did not account for fruit and vegetable intake and in studies conducted outside the United States. The studies done in the United States, and those that did factor in diet, found no statistically meaningful benefit from MVM supplements in preventing heart disease.
The results were consistent when researchers adjusted for other factors, such as follow-up duration, age, sex, physical activity, etc.
In an editorial published in the same journal, Vinay Prasad and Alyson Haslam, both with the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Sciences University, concur and support the review’s findings that multivitamins and mineral supplements don’t prevent cardiovascular disease. “Preventing or treating disease with vitamin supplements was relatively simple when foods were limited, frank vitamin deficiency was possible, and common diseases had a clear cause, such as vitamin C deficiency for scurvy or thiamine deficiency for beriberi, wrote Prasad and Haslam. “Now that diets are more varied, supplemented, and fortified, diseases of frank vitamin deficiency are rare, and the most commonly occurring diseases have a multifactorial cause. It may be unlikely for a supplement ingested once a day to confer a health benefit, and the study by Kim et al. provides no reason to take one.”