Multivitamin use not associated with women's risk of cancer, heart disease or death
February 9, 2009Postmenopausal women who take multivitamins appear to have the same risk of most common cancers, cardiovascular disease or dying of any cause as women who do not take multivitamin supplements, according to a report in the February 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
About half of Americans use dietary supplements, spending more than $20 billion per year on these products, according to background information in the article. "The motivations for supplement use vary, but common reasons include the belief that these preparations will prevent chronic diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease," the authors write. "These views are often fueled by product health claims, consumer testimonials and an industry that is largely unregulated owing to the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act." Scientific data supporting the benefits of supplements—including multivitamins, the most commonly used supplements—are lacking.
Marian L. Neuhouser, Ph.D., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, and colleagues analyzed data from participants in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI): 161,808 women from three clinical trials testing hormone therapy, dietary modification and vitamin D supplements and 93,676 women who were part of an observational study. The women enrolled in the WHI between 1993 and 1998; information about vitamin use was collected through interviews and by supplement bottles brought to clinic visits.
A total of 41.5 percent of the participants used multivitamins. Through 2005 (a median or midpoint of eight years of follow-up for the clinical trials and 7.9 years for the observational study), 9,619 cases of breast, colorectal, endometrial, renal, bladder, stomach, lung or ovarian cancer developed; 8,751 cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, occurred; and 9,865 deaths were reported. Analyses revealed no significant associations between multivitamin use and the likelihood of developing cancer or cardiovascular disease, or of dying.
"Risk estimates did not materially change when stratified by class of multivitamins, with the exception of a possible lower risk of myocardial infarction [heart attack] among users of stress-type supplements. Many stress supplements include high doses of folic acid and other B vitamins; previous studies have supported a protective role for folic acid in relation to cardiovascular disease and its antecedent risk factors," the authors write.
More info: Arch Intern Med. 2009;169[3]:294-304.
Source: JAMA and Archives Journals
Nov 25, 2009 |
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For instance, it is very, very easy to overdose on vitamin A ("hypervitaminosis A" causes everything from birth defects to hairloss. It is really nasty). The only significant exceptions are Vitamin C (which it is nearly impossible to overdose on unless you're a moron, because large doses don't get absorbed, and you pee them out) and Vitamin D (almost the entire population of the planet is deficient in Vitamin D, and studies seem to indicate that we may need several times more than we currently consume/make).
I'm not against people taking vitamins, but I'd like to see the darned industry regulated. Vitamins are drugs just like anything else, and they can do harm. Especially to children, because they are small, and vitamin doses can be very large.
The supplement industry "tries" to regulate itself but there are always, in this case, a large numbers of poachers. Compare this to Big Pharma where it has been estimated that ~200,000 people/yr die of properly prescribed drugs and ~75% of FDA employees eventually go to work for the medical industry.
Compare that to the few morons/yr who get Vitamin A poisoning or turn blue from drinking massive quantities of silver solutions.
This is not exactly a controlled study. Is it? I also saw this story at CBSnews.com and it's clear to me that it's nothing more than propaganda by big pharma in their push for Codex Alimentarius.
Why don't they tell us:
*What kind of multivitamins that 42% was taking?
*What kind of lifestyle including diet do those women have?
*What are their family herstories?
*Most important, what current drug prescriptions/medical therapies were they concurrently undergoing?
This is a grossly uncontrolled "study" that pans out to nothing more than propaganda against essential nutrients.
Whole foods? OK. I agree. Is the public properly educated on whole foods? No. Is the public properly educated on vitamins? No. Is the public properly educated on healthy lifestyle? NO.
Instead of dissing vitamins, which have virtually no harmful side effects compared to drugs, why don't you educate people on their proper usage and educate people on a healthy lifestyle? Because this is nothing more than propaganda and you want to keep Americans STUPID.
This obsession people have with the pharmaceutical industry is weird. Maybe they are just against corporations in general. Understandable, I suppose. But do they think governments are any less corrupt? Certainly not. But would they *really* want the total anarchy that would result from no corps and no government? I think that if they thought through the horrendous implications of that, they wouldn't. (We'd all be living like they do in central Africa... like cavemen. Not a pleasant existence.)
So I really don't understand this selective hatred people have: the weird assumption that the multi-billion dollar corrupt pharmaceutical industry is bad (cause it is out to make billions at any cost), while the multi-billion dollar corrupt supplement industry is good (cause it isn't out to make bil... oh wait... it is).