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Getting your vitamins and minerals through diet.

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Getting your vitamins and minerals through diet

The benefits of multivitamins are looking doubtful. Can we do without them?

We all know that vitamin supplements are no substitute for a healthy diet, but nobody's perfect when it comes to healthful eating. It can be particularly challenging to get the nutrients you need if you're dieting or if you avoid animal or dairy products. So, many of us take a daily multivitamin as nutritional insurance. But research suggests that multivitamins may not be all they're cracked up to be. Moreover, many multivitamins contain some micronutrients in amounts in excess of those recommended in the government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans (www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines). In some cases, these levels may result in unsafe intakes.

In February 2009, a study involving 161,808 postmenopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) concluded that those who took multivitamins did not have a lower death rate than others and were just as likely to develop cardiovascular disease or cancers of the lung, colon/rectum, breast, and endometrium * the kinds that are most common in women. Granted, WHI participants were healthy to begin with, but these results are consistent with findings from other studies. There's been little or no evidence of protection against cardiovascular disease or cancers from a number of vitamin supplements, including vitamin E, vitamin C, beta carotene, and the B-vitamin trio * B6, B12, and folic acid. And in 2006, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said there wasn't enough evidence for a recommendation about taking multivitamins.

Now research suggesting potential harm has been added to the mix. In 2008, a Cochrane Collaboration review found that people in trials who were given supplements of vitamin A, vitamin E, and beta carotene had a higher death rate. And there's some evidence that excess folic acid (the synthetic version of folate, a vitamin found abundantly in vegetables, fruits, and grains) may be contributing to an uptick...

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