More and more people are turning to nutritional supplements as a means to live a healthier longer life. At the top of the list tends to be a daily multivitamin, as many believe it will provide all the necessary vitamins and minerals to better our health. After all, it couldn’t hurt, right?
Well, according to a recent US study, this might not be the case. Researchers from the University of Minnesota examined data on the supplement usage of more than 38,000 women over the age of 60 from the long-term Iowa Women’s Health Study. They found that women who took supplements had, on average, a 2.4 percent increased risk of dying over the course of the 19-year study, compared with women who didn’t take supplements. While researchers couldn’t determine the specific cause of increased risk of mortality, they believed it to be was linked with supplementing multivitamins, vitamin B6, folic acid, iron, magnesium, zinc and copper. The risk seemed to be highest with supplemental iron, and inversely, calcium was actually found to be associated with a decreased risk of early death.
The media seems to be running this study everywhere, but before you go swearing off supplements all together, I just wanted to bring up some key points for you to consider.
1. The study does not mention the type of vitamins the women were taking.
We all know we are meant to get our vitamins and minerals from food, not from a pill. Unfortunately, most aren’t eating a well balanced diet that provides all of the important micronutrients, so we must turn to a supplement. However, not all vitamins are created equal. There is a big difference if the multi is a general USP (United States Pharmacopoeia) vitamin, or a whole food vitamin.
Let me explain a little further. Most multivitamins on the market fall into the USP category, and actually bear little resemblance to the nutrients obtained from whole foods. Simply put, USP vitamins isolate and reduce a nutrient to its most basic form. USP’s are synthesized and delivered as single molecules without any of the synergistic nutrients and cofactors. You can see this on your multi-vitamin when you see the phrase “Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid).” When you eat vitamin C in an orange, you are getting hundreds of other compounds within vitamin C, not simply ascorbic acid. Isolating nutrients and delivering them in this unnatural way changes the body’s response to them and according to research reduces the body’s ability to utilize them.
Fortunately, there is a solution for individuals who want the benefits of a multi-vitamin but prefer the known safety and superior effectiveness of vitamins and minerals from living sources. They are called whole food vitamins. In a whole food multi, you are getting the same Vitamin C as if you were to eat an orange. In fact, according to recent research conducted at the University of Scranton, whole food nutrients are more readily absorbed and are significantly more biologically active than their isolated USP counterparts.
I would highly doubt that whole food vitamins were taken by the majority of the women in the study, as most multi companies use USP vitamins.
2. What was really in the supplements these women were taking?
Many supplements and multivitamins contain a wide array of “other” ingredients that are not necessarily beneficial and may possibly even be harmful. For example, a Centrum multivitamin contains 30 “other” ingredients that could potentially be harmful such as binders, dyes, talc and BHT. Perhaps it wasn’t the vitamins, but these harmful additives that were causing early death. This is another reason I am an advocate of whole food vitamins, in which you will not find these additives.
3. The women in the study may have been over supplementing.
According to one of the researchers, “Most supplements contain higher amounts of nutrients than would be derived from food, and it is known that several compounds can be toxic in higher amounts, especially when consumed for a long time, as some of these accumulate to body.” We aren’t sure how much the women were taking, so they very well could have been taking much more than they actually needed.
4. Supplement use was self-reported.
Because the researchers simply examined reports of what the women said, they could have potentially have been over or under reporting. Only with a well controlled clinical study, in which the researchers directly observed the supplement use, could we really know for sure how much was actually taken.
So, in my opinion, I truly don’t think there is enough information to simply conclude multivitamins cause early death. However, I think it may Hopefully, this study will spark further controlled research on the impact of specific supplements and health so we may have a better idea on what is actually going on.
One more thing, if you are still nervous about using a multi, that’s OK. I actually believe there are more important supplements to take than a multivitamin, such as fish oil, a probiotic or an anti-inflammatory product like Zyflamend. Even if you aren’t eating that healthy, your food is still providing some vitamins and minerals, but it is most likely not decreasing inflammation or providing the good flora that can greatly benefit our health.
So, consider switching to a whole food vitamin, taking a supplement you may not be getting at all in your diet, or try taking only the vitamins or minerals you may specifically need, such as Vitamin D during the winter.
If you are concerned that you may be taking too much, feel free to stop in with your list of supplements. I am typically in the store on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and would love to speak with you!
For more information on Whole food vitamins, check out the Vital Choice podcast “What’s in Your Multi” or read the Vital Choice blog “Is your Multi making you Sick”.
–Nicole Gould, R.D., L.D.
This information is provided for Educational Purposes only and has not been designed to diagnose, treat or cure any health conditions
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