Daily Multivitamin Supplements Do Not Help You Live Longer, Study Finds
NDTV
The researchers found no evidence that daily multivitamins reduced the risk of death. In fact, they reported a 4% higher mortality risk among users in the initial years of follow-up.
Taking daily multivitamins does not help people live longer and may actually increase the risk of early death, a new study has found. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, analysed nearly 400,000 generally healthy adults for more than 20 years and found that "multivitamin use to improve longevity is not supported". Surprisingly, instead of living longer, those who took multivitamins were actually 4% more likely to die than those who didn't take any, researchers said.
For the study, Dr Erikka Loftfield and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute in Maryland analysed data from three major US health studies. All were launched in the 1990s and gathered details on participants' daily multivitamin use. The records covered 390,124 generally healthy adults who were followed for more than 20 years.
The researchers found no evidence that daily multivitamins reduced the risk of death. In fact, they reported a 4% higher mortality risk among users in the initial years of follow-up. The greater risk of death may reflect the harm multivitamins can cause or a trend for people to start daily multivitamins when they develop a serious illness, researchers said.
