In recent news, it has been claimed that multi vitamins may have no benefit to us. About 1 week ago, a few separate studies were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, concluding that, “supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful.” The studies determined that multivitamins had no effect on the prevention of heart disease or other chronic diseases.
Well, yes, this does make perfect sense. As a consumer of multi-vitamins, at no time did I ever believe that simply popping a few pills would ever prevent any chronic diseases. I mean, If I or you were to believe it really could prevent those diseases, wouldn’t we be calling them “cure pills” and not vitamin pills?
Even in the study they claimed that some vitamins even showed a decrease in certain health factors of “healthy” men. But how does this correlate to “us” as a whole? What defines “healthy men”? There are a plethora of lifestyle factors that go into studies like this that make it hard to determine true validity.
And in lieu of these negative claims, there are still some positive ones. Multi-vitamins are beneficial for those who lack certain vitamins or minerals and studies still give credence to women taking Folic acid during pregnancy to avoid birth defects as well as supported studies on the supplementation of Vitamin D.
What it all comes down to is being educated consumers. Don’t be duped by mass marketing who spend 100s of millions of dollars to get billions of your dollars. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that just by taking a few pills everyday (no matter what the claims) will reverse years of an unhealthy diet and zero exercise habits.