Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2010

Multivitamins: Most likely myth, not magic

Like many Americans, Brandon Commiskey takes a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement. He’s a healthy enough guy. At 26, he has no medical conditions, exercises and eats fairly well. Or tries to.

“I’m broke, so sometimes a 99-cent hamburger is lunch,” said Commiskey, of Walnut Creek, Calif. “I wouldn’t say the multivitamin is a full replacement for eating right. I see it more as maintenance.”

It’s difficult to discern what multivitamins do — if anything. Yet Americans continue to shell out $23.7 billion a year on supplements, even following the news this month that the high levels of vitamin D once thought to ward off chronic diseases and improve health problems may be unnecessary or harmful. While some experts believe certain populations may benefit from multivitamin use more than others, they all agree that a healthful diet and exercise serve you better than popping a pill.

The biggest evidence comes from the Women’s Health Initiative, a groundbreaking study published last year. It followed 162,000 women ages 50 to 74 who took multivitamins for eight years and found that the supplements did not reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases or any of the major cancers, including breast, lung, stomach, kidney, colorectal or ovarian.

“I wasn’t surprised,” said Marian Neuhouser, lead author and associate member in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “A lot of other dietary supplement studies have shown the same thing.”

For those who don’t eat their veggies, a multivitamin isn’t going to do a darn thing. Sorry.

“It’s a myth that if you have a poor diet and take a multivitamin, it will somehow make up for it,” Neuhouser said. “Multivitamins don’t contain all of the benefits of plant foods and whole grains. So if people have tight budgets, they’re better off spending their money on produce.”

Nora Norback, a registered dietitian with Kaiser Permanente, said she agrees. But she also believes that in our “overfed and undernourished” society, multivitamins may help with dietary gaps — and there are many.

“Many of us don’t eat in a way that we’re meeting our nutrient needs,” said Norback, who works in Richmond, Calif. “A multivitamin and mineral supplement appears to bring us up to the levels with vitamin E, A, B6 and zinc.”

Her research comes from the government’s Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Norback estimates that about 40 percent of adults and children aren’t meeting recommendations for calcium, magnesium and fiber. And then there are people who are most vulnerable to nutrient deficiencies: Adults 65 and older, vegans, vegetarians, the alcohol-dependent and people who don’t have enough money to consistently provide nutrient-rich foods for themselves.

They might benefit from a multivitamin and mineral supplement, she said. Pregnant women also benefit from prenatal multivitamins, particularly with adequate folic acid, which helps prevent birth defects.

Bottom line? Multivitamins aren’t harmful, but they also haven’t been proven to prevent disease. So, do yourself a favor.

“Spend the cash on vitamins in their natural packaging,” Norback said. “If you eat a balanced diet and exercise, multivitamins aren’t going to do much for you anyway.”

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