Last week, while discussing her health condition, a client revealed that her doctor told her to stop taking multivitamins-they were of no benefit. I was stunned and stupefied that a physician in 2016 would make such a claim. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve advised my patients for over 25 years to take vitamin supplements, which have had a tremendous positive impact on their health and well-being.
Ironically, just a few days before this conversation, a new study was published, that could and should put this issue to rest.
This study is the latest of thousands of studies that have proven the benefits of vitamin supplementation, from single supplements to multi-vitamins, which I believe are needed now more than ever, due to the rampant vitamin and mineral deficiencies we are experiencing that place us at a greater risk of developing chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, hypertension, Alzheimer’s, and many, many more. We are experiencing these nutrient deficiencies, due to the dramatically reduced amounts of vitamins and minerals in our food supply caused by industrialized farming practices.
An international study conducted by scientists at Harvard University’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Karolinska Institute and the Harvard T.H. School of Public Health analyzed data from the 18,530 male physician’s participating in the Physicians’ Health Study found men with a history of long-term use (20 years) of multivitamin supplements protected men from cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke.
The researchers noted in The Journal of Nutrition, “Although our results suggest that continuous multivitamin use over a longer duration may be significantly associated with a lower risk of major CVD (coronary vascular disease), the low number of case supporting these results indicates that they should be interpreted with caution,” while they noted that some other observational studies have also report heart benefits among long-term multivitamin users.
Sources:
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2016/04/26/jn.115.227884.abstract