People believe achieving optimal nutrition and preventing the occurrence of chronic disease is as easy as popping a daily multivitamin pill.
An observational study in 2009 included 161,808 women between 50-79 years old from the Women’s Health Initiative clinical trials. After a median follow-up of around eight years in the clinical trial and observational study, the Women’s Health Initiative study provided convincing evidence multi vitamin use has little or no effect on heart disease, common cancer or total mortality in postmenopausal women.
Even though the potential ineffectiveness of taking a multivitamin, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey still showed 52 percent of Americans have taken a vitamin supplement in the past month and 35 percent of Americans take a regular multivitamin.
Another study conducted by the Nutrition Journal in 2009, which assessed the multi vitamin uses among health professionals including physicians and nurses. Nine hundred physicians and 277 nurses from around the country participated in this study and they were asked about the frequency of taking vitamin supplements. The results showed 89 percent of nurses and 72 percent of physicians used a multi vitamin supplement sometime throughout the year, and 82 percent of nurses and 79 percent of physicians would suggest their patients take a multivitamin.
Read more at News Tribune