According to a decade-long observational study that looked at more than 30,000 people, essential vitamins and minerals help extend your life and keep you from chronic ailments, but only if you get them through foods and not supplements.
The study was published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The examiners of the study found that taking dietary supplements containing essential vitamins and minerals offers no evident benefits in terms of promoting your health or reducing the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancers.
In simple terms, popping dietary supplements cannot replace eating a healthy, nutritious diet.
This finding will surely not please the gigantic, $30 billion supplement industry.
In addition, the study found potential harms of using dietary supplements. For instance, getting higher doses of calcium (1,000 mg per day) through supplements is associated with an increased risk of cancer. Similarly, people who take vitamin D supplements without actually having a vitamin D deficiency are at a greater risk of death from all causes, including cancer.
However, it is unclear from this experimental study that why the essential vitamins and minerals from supplements had such different effects than from foods.
The study authors, including a team of nutrition experts, led by scientists at Tufts University noted that human beings consume foods and nutrients that are highly correlated and the complex interactions between essential nutrients play a vital role in determining health outcomes than individual nutrients.
In the United States, more than half of all adults use dietary supplements, while 10 percent of them report popping four or more supplements each day.
The study has a few limitations, including relying on people to remember the foods that they eat and expecting them to honestly report them. Plus, it is an experimental study, which is only able to pick out some correlations, but it did not prove that nutrients can cause any harms or benefits.
Many researchers (as usual) have called for more studies into the popular use of dietary supplements. However, they concluded, “although adequate nutrient intake from foods could contribute to reduced risk for death, excess intake from supplements might increase mortality.”
