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New study suggests taking multivitamins won’t actually help you live longer
1 in 3 Americans take multivitamins every day to boost their health, but a new study suggests they might not be as useful as you think.
It looked into the association between long-term, daily multivitamin use and mortality in healthy adults, and found they won’t actually help you live longer.
Taking multivitamins won’t help you live longer
The study, which was published in the JAMA journal, analyzed data from 390,124 adults without a history of cancer or other chronic diseases.
All of the participants were followed up at least 20 years later, and the study concluded that multivitamin use was “not associated with a mortality benefit”.
In fact, it actually found that those who took a multivitamin daily had a 4% higher mortality risk than nonusers. That means people who took a daily multivitamin were at a slightly higher risk of death than those who didn’t.
This could be because people relied on multivitamins alone instead of eating a healthy, balanced diet rich in nutrients.
A total of 164,762 participants died over the study period, with 49,836 deaths being due to cancer, 35,060 attributed to heart diseases, and 9275 down to cerebrovascular diseases.
However, the study concluded that daily multivitamin use may still improve other health outcomes related to aging.
Eating a balanced diet is most important
MedlinePlus explains that the best way to get enough vitamins is to eat a balanced diet with a variety of foods. They say that in some cases, you may need to take vitamin supplements, but it’s a good idea to ask your health care provider first.
You can usually get all the vitamins your body needs from the foods you eat, including Vitamin A, B’s, C, D, E and K.
A balanced diet includes eating at least five portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables every day, the NHS reveals. You should also base�meals on higher fibre starchy foods like potatoes, bread, rice or pasta and have some dairy or dairy alternatives.
Eat some beans, pulses, fish, eggs, meat and other protein too, and choose unsaturated oils and spreads, but eat them in small amounts. You also need to drink plenty of fluids, at least six to eight glasses a day, and limit foods that are high in fat, salt and sugar.
Each vitamin has a specific job, and it’s important to get enough of each otherwise you may get health problems.
