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Vitamin supplements - more harmful than healthy?30 April 2008
Dr Joanne Lunn, Senior Nutrition Scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation
Taking vitamin pills may not prolong your life, and some may even increase your risk of dying early, according to a new review of the evidence. Many people in the UK take vitamin supplements, believing they improve health. However, it's uncertain whether vitamin supplements are actually good for us. To investigate this, authors from the Cochrane Collaboration (an independent not-for-profit organisation) reviewed the current evidence on the effect of antioxidant vitamin supplements on death rates. They analysed 67 high quality studies looking at vitamin supplements and number of deaths. The analysis found no evidence to support the use of vitamin supplements, either by healthy people or those with an illness. Vitamin supplements didn't seem to decrease the number of deaths. Some supplements - vitamins A, E and beta carotene - even seemed to increase death rates. The findings for vitamin C and selenium were not conclusive. The authors did an initial search of the evidence, from which they found a large number of research studies looking at vitamin supplements. They narrowed their search to include only studies on vitamin supplements and death rates. Any studies that were of poor quality, unfinished, too small or irrelevant were excluded from their analysis. This left 67 relevant, high quality studies. The 67 studies included a total of 232,550 people, both healthy people and those with an illness. They compared antioxidant vitamin supplements, placebo (dummy) pills or taking no supplements at all on the number of deaths in these people. Dr Joanne Lunn, Senior Nutrition Scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation said: "This review has assessed all the relevant studies and has concluded that people who take these supplements don't live longer lives." She added: "You will usually be able to get all the vitamins and minerals you need by eating a healthy balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables. Your body will only absorb the vitamins it needs and will excrete anything extra. By taking high doses of individual vitamins, you may end up just producing very expensive urine. Also, for some vitamins, such as vitamin A, it can be dangerous to take super-high doses." The authors say that more research is needed to look at the effects of vitamin C and selenium, and the effects of vitamin treatments taken by groups of patients who are specifically prescribed them. Related informationFurther information
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You will usually be able to get all the vitamins and minerals you need by eating a healthy balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables
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