14 DAY TRIAL // University of Minnesota investigators have recently discovered that women who consume numerous vitamin supplements are at higher risk of dying than peers who do not use the chemicals. The investigation that led to this conclusion was carried out on thousands of women in the United States.
Experts say that the data they used were collected from the Iowa Women's Health Study, which covered in excess of 38,000 women. Participants had an average age of around 62 years when the investigation began, back in 1986.
In 1986, 1997 and 2004, experts applied questionnaires meant to gage women's use of vitamin supplements and other similar chemicals. By cross-referencing medical records with these reports, the team was able to demonstrate that women who took vitamins had a 2.4 percent higher chance of death.
The risk factor was spread over the 19-year study, but investigators say that the correlation is statistically-significant enough to warrant further investigation. They say that the link stuck even after scientists compensated for risk factors such as age and calorie intake.
Details of the investigation were published in the October 10 issue of the esteemed journal Archives of Internal Medicine. The study is just one of a series of works seeking to draw attention to a series of medical interventions that may be unnecessary at times.
“Our study, as well as other similar studies, have provided very little evidence that commonly used dietary supplements would help to prevent chronic diseases,” explains researcher Jaakko Mursu, who was the author of the new paper.
“We would advise people to reconsider whether they need to use supplements, and put more emphasis on a healthy diet instead,” he adds. The expert holds an appointment as an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, LiveScience reports.
Multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc and copper were found to be the most significant when it came to increasing the death risk for women. The new study is not meant to suggest that women should not take vitamins, but rather that they should temper their consumption patterns.
“We do know that most compounds are toxic in high amounts, and long-term use might predispose [a person] to detrimental outcomes,” Mursu explains. He adds that some of the compounds contained in the vitamins could accumulate in the body over the years, causing the negative side-effects on health.
“Until recently, the available data regarding the adverse effects of dietary supplements has been limited and grossly underreported. We think the paradigm 'the more, the better' is wrong,” Dr. Goran Bjelakovic and Dr. Christian Gluud write in an accompanying commentary.