There is much confusion out there about whether multivitamins are beneficial or not. Recently, there have been articles about how vitamins and supplements increase the risk of heart attacks and prostate cancer, or don’t provide any benefit at all. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that taking a multivitamin may help prevent cancer in healthy middle-aged men. They studied 15,000 male physicians who were 50 years or older for more than a decade. Half took Centrum Silver (Nutrisearch ranking 0.5) and the other half took a placebo. Men in the vitamin group had an 8% reduction in cancer cases compared to the placebo group. The researchers were not able to determine which types of cancer might be prevented when taking a multivitamin. Their take-home message was that these sorts of supplements aren’t associated with harm, so it removes the concern that many people had about the use of vitamin supplements.
What I think is important that you take away from this is this. Take a balance of all 40 essential nutrients and take the form of the nutrient that is the same as what the body uses, if possible. For example, take vitamin D3, rather than vitamin D2. As positive as these results are, just think what effects it might have if you took a multivitamin that is a Nutrisearch ranking of 3-5!
If you have any questions about multi-vitamins, feel free contact me at (563)263-7044!
Lucinda Harms, RPh
