Vitamin supplements: you don’t need them if you have a healthy diet and they don’t prolong life, study finds
- New research into heart health shows taking vitamin supplements has little positive impact on our hearts, or our lifespans; just eat a healthy diet
- There is no ‘magic pill’ that can make up for an unhealthy diet or lack of fitness, and some supplement combinations increase risk of a stroke
Vitamin supplements, a multibillion-dollar industry, are a layperson’s favourite prescription. Tired? Take an iron supplement. Sad? Classic vitamin D deficiency.
But a recent paper about cardiovascular health, published last month in Annals of Internal Medicine, put this loyalty to the test. Surprise, surprise: vitamin supplements had little impact on heart conditions, including heart disease, and lifespan as a whole.
According to Dr Erin Michos, associate professor of medicine in cardiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and one of the paper’s co-authors, the paper was catalysed in part by the growing popularity of the supplement industry.
“An estimated one out of two Americans are taking some kind of supplement or vitamin,” Michos says. “For the vast majority of vitamins, we did not find any benefit, either in reduction in death or cardiovascular health.”
While vitamin devotees might feel betrayed, medical professionals are less surprised. The paper reviewed collective evidence from separate randomised clinical trials to analyse the benefit of dietary intervention and supplementation in cardiovascular conditions.
