By Trisha Pasricha, MD, Special to The Washington Post: What are the benefits of taking a multivitamin? Should I take one even if I’m healthy?About one-third of Americans take multivitamins regularly. Many purchase the supplement because they think it can impact broad health outcomes - help them live longer, decrease cancer risk and reduce cardiovascular disease. Otherwise healthy people also take it to fill gaps in their diets.
• A French study of about 13,000 adults between ages 35 and 60 found an improvement in cancer risk and mortality in men, but not women, after 7½ years of daily supplementation. My takeaway? Eating a healthy diet has been well established in multiple large studies to improve numerous health outcomes, from reversing coronary heart disease to reducing cancer risk.Is it better to eat healthy or take vitamins?
This data is encouraging. We likely need additional research to understand more about the extent of this effect and to target the right population. For instance, the people who appeared to benefit most are those with baseline cardiovascular disease. It’s not clear why, but it may be that these patients had micronutrient deficiencies, perhaps related to certain cardiac medications.
• People who are pregnant or breastfeeding. In this case, a multivitamin containing 400 to 800 mg of folic acid should be taken as directed by their physician.Multivitamins are not regulated as medications by the Food and Drug Administration, so there can be wide variations in what goes into each brand’s formulations.
But generally, it makes most sense to pick a vitamin that targets your sex and age group. Multivitamins targeted at younger women tend to contain higher amounts of folic acid and iron, which is often low because of losses due to menstruation.