In one of the most massive data-mining analyses yet conducted on the effectiveness of dietary supplements, researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that the ‘vast majority’ of vitamin, mineral and other supplements cannot be linked to improved heart health or longevity…
A common sense diet that includes lots of Fresh Fruits and Veggies,
and an active lifestyle will do much more for you than any
nutritional supplement to reduce your risk of
heart disease, and prolong your life…
Some background…
Researchers at Johns Hopkins noted that surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 52 percent of Americans take a least one vitamin or other dietary or nutritional supplement daily. As a nation, Americans spend $31 billion each year on such over-the-counter products. They’re looking for protection from the most common ills that plague modern society: obesity, diabetes, heart disease and stroke. The research team elected to analyse as much data as they could access to determine whether supplements were providing such protection.
What they did
Researchers gathered data from 277 randomized clinical trials that evaluated 16 vitamins or other supplements and eight diets for their association with mortality or heart conditions including coronary heart disease, stroke and heart attack. All together, the data covered 992,129 research participants worldwide.
Each supplement or diet was also ranked by the strength of the evidence for benefits as high, moderate, low or very low.
What they found
The majority of the supplements including multivitamins, selenium, vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin D alone, calcium alone and iron showed no link to increased or decreased risk of death or heart health. The ‘vast majority’ of supplements studied produced only single-digit reductions in the risk of suffering heart-related conditions or early death.
“The panacea or magic bullet that people keep searching for in dietary supplements [and special diets] isn’t there,” says Study Senior Author Dr. Erin D. Michos.
The takeaway
“People should focus on getting their nutrients from a heart-healthy diet, because the data increasingly show that the majority of healthy adults don’t need to take supplements,” Michos explains. That simply means eating more fresh Fruits and Veggies and less Animal Protein, Salt Fat and added Sugar. And we’ve all heard that message many times before.
My take
Yes, we’ve all heard the message, but obviously we haven’t heeded it. Rates of heart disease, cancer and related illnesses continue to rise, and obesity remains out of control. May I humbly suggest that the ‘magic bullet’ for the avoidable scourges of modern health and wellness may simply be ‘common sense’?
~ Maggie J.