Weight Loss and Healthy Living

The Internet has recently been buzzing with news about the potential dangers of multivitamins. There is a study reported in the February 28, 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that claims to have found a link between vitamin intake and increased mortality (risk of dying). Is this report cause for alarm? Should we run from our vitamins while we still can?


The study came to a shocking conclusion: Treatment with beta carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase mortality. The potential roles of vitamin C and selenium on mortality need further study.

The media, who always has our best interest at heart (said sarcastically, of course) made sure they informed consumers about this breaking information as quickly as possible. I received a flood of emails to my inbox asking me my thoughts and opinions on the matter. Fortunately, we don't have to rely on my opinions ... in fact, I can respond with some interesting facts.

First, in case you don't want to take my word for it, here are a two interesting links that were posted by prominent and reputable organizations in response to the study:

• Study Citing Antioxidant Vitamin Risks Based on Flawed Methodology
• Meta-analysis on Antioxidants Provides Muddled Conclusions

So what's the bottom line? Take into consideration the following:

• The study is not a new clinical trial, but a statistical analysis determined from many studies (called a meta- analysis)
• For this meta-analysis, the authors combined studies that differed vastly in design, use rates, duration, and study population
• Interestingly, any of a large body of hundreds of studies demonstrating potential health benefits from vitamin supplementation were excluded from the analysis (imagine if 800 people died from eating poision, and 200 lived ... so you "threw out" the 800 deaths and reported "based on these 200 cases, the poison does not appear to cause death")
• While the initial analysis examined 1201 research papers from 815 trials, only 68 trials were actually used in the final analysis (hmmm, maybe tossing out what doesn't fit the agenda?)
• When the initial results from this data did not show any effect on death rates, the authors removed an additional 21 studies (called a sub analysis) to draw their conclusion that supplements increase risk of mortality (ouch!)
• Interestingly, in these 47 remaining studies, the doses used greatly exceeded normal use rates, and in many cases, were well above tolerable upper intake limits (UL) (i.e. they used doses that may not be safe). In contrast, the studies eliminated from this study generally used doses that did not exceed the UL and were more in line with actual use rates.

In a nutshell, apparently there was an agenda at stake because any studies that showed a benefit were tossed. Any studies that would make sense for you and me to follow because they involved doses similar to what we may receive from our own multivitamins were also tossed out. Only those fringe studies with negative effects were included. Again, to make an analogy, imagine if you were reporting on the health benefits of broccoli, and found that if someone were force-fed 20 pounds of broccoli per day and not allowed to eat anything else, they would die. Then, based on this, you concluded that broccoli is dangerous to eat. Does that make any sense?

No, it doesn't. I would be the first person to toss out my vitamins if I ever found out they were causing more harm than good. I take them every day. So does my wife. So does my daughter. I love my family, and the reason I focus on health is to enjoy as much time with them as God will allow (I know there are many ways I can go not related to health, but doesn't it make sense to take care of the part we are in control of?) So whenever something like this is published, I am the first to look into it ... and once again, I find that it is not someone looking out for my best interest, but in fact another scare-tactic used by someone with an obvious agenda.

So best wishes for good health and don't forget to take your multivitamin!

Thanks to John Cuomo, Ph.D. Executive Director R&D USANA Health Sciences, Inc. for some of the statistics and facts presented in this article

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Here are the multivitamins I have used and recommend:

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