LOS ANGELES — If you’re taking a multivitamin to help you live longer, a new study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute may prompt you to reconsider. After analyzing health and nutrition data from nearly 400,000 Americans, the researchers found that people who took multivitamins had a small but significantly greater risk of premature death than people who eschewed the supplements. The findings , reported Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, may seem baffling.
Americans aren’t known for having the most balanced diets, and swallowing a pill to fill in our nutrition gaps is often touted as a sensible insurance policy. Besides, vitamins are essential. It would stand to reason that the more you take, the better.
But like so many things regarding our health, the science is not so straightforward. As recently as 2022, the experts on the U.S.
Preventive Services Task Force conducted a thorough review of the medical literature regarding the potential for multivitamins to help prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer. They concluded there was not enough reliable evidence to make a recommendation one way or the other. Two things make it difficult to assess the value of multivitamins.
On the one hand, there’s the “healthy user effect.” This describes the fact that people who take multivitamins tend to do a lot of beneficial things, including eating fruits and vegetables, getting regular exercise and abstaining from smoking. When assessing the relationship b.
