I got pretty steamed today about a heart health newsletter that stated “multivitamins increase the risk of cancer and heart disease, according to recent studies.” This post will help you understand the truth about multivitamins.
While the author of this newsletter had some beneficial information to share like:
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Every day, your heart creates enough energy to drive a truck for 20 miles.
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Your heart can keep beating even if it is separated from the body because it has its own electrical impulse.
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75 trillion cells receive blood from the heart.
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Your heart will pump nearly 1.5 million barrels of blood during your lifetime, enough to fill 200 train tank cars.
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Instead of chest pains, heart attacks in women have nausea, indigestion, and shoulder aches.
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Your heart beats over 100,000 times per day.
And then came this statement:
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Multivitamins increase the risk of cancer and heart disease, according to recent studies.
That statement got me angry because it’s misleading without the context of the study.
What is the Truth about Multivitamins?
I immediately sent an email to the author of the newsletter stating, “If you’re going to make a statement like that, then please actually quote the specifics and not the generality because your statement is not truthful.” Here’s a quote from others who actually talk about the results of the study:
Dr. Marc Penn, who led the study, said yesterday: ‘Given the results, the use of vitamin supplements containing beta carotene and vitamin A should be actively discouraged because this family of agents is associated with a small but significant excess of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular death.’
Shock findings
The findings – published today in the medical journal the Lancet – will shock Britons who spend £175million a year on supplements and pills.
Forty per cent of women and 30 per cent of men pop a vitamin pill each day. Ten million Britons regularly take the most popular vitamins – C and E and beta carotene, the pigment found in carrots, tomatoes and broccoli which the body converts into vitamin A.
Previous studies have suggested such antioxidant vitamins offer protection against cardiovascular disease by delaying the progression of atherosclerosis – the furring up of the arteries.
But the latest study – an analysis of 15 separate pieces of research involving more than 200,000 patients by the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in the U.S. – says no such benefit has been shown in large trials.
It found beta carotene actually led to a 0.4 per cent increase in deaths from all causes and a 0.3 per cent increase specifically in cardiovascular death.
The Real Truth about This Study and Multivitamins
It’s not multivitamins in general but two specific vitamins: vitamin A and beta carotene
If you look at the research from the Cleveland Clinic they found a .4 percent increase in deaths from all causes and a .3 percent increase specifically in cardiovascular death.
What angered me even more was the fact that the author of the heart health newsletter had just done several articles on sugar. Sugar has a far greater effect on cardiovascular disease than a person’s multivitamin. Here’s some documented research for you:
A sugar-laden diet may raise your risk of dying of heart disease even if you aren’t overweight. So says a major study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Added sugars make up at least 10% of the calories the average American eats in a day. But about one in 10 people get a whopping one-quarter or more of their calories from added sugar.
Over the course of the 15-year study, participants who took in 25% or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those whose diets included less than 10% added sugar.
The above quote comes from this source
That’s “twice as likely to die from heart disease” from overuse of sugar as opposed to a .3 percent increase from beta carotene.
My Final Thoughts on The Truth about Multivitamins
If you’re going to make statements to your readers to actually help them improve their health, then it’s important to give them real information that actually benefits them and saves lives.
If you have a concern about Vitamin A and beta carotene then understand the following:
Vitamin A is fat soluble. Excess vitamin A will be stored in your fat cells. The easiest way to prevent this is to consume only beta carotene.
Beta carotene is water soluble. This means that any excess beta carotene will be eliminated in your urine.
Your body will convert beta carotene to vitamin A as it needs it. The best way to enjoy the health benefits of vitamin A would be to consume beta carotene. Ideally through vegetables like carrots, tomatoes, and broccoli.
If you truly want to reduce your risk for cancer and cardiovascular disease, then don’t worry about eliminating your multivitamins. Rather, eliminate the excess sugar in your diet. And, if you want to make an even greater impact on improving your health, then eliminate wheat and wheat byproducts from your diet.
This will have a greater impact on reducing your risk for cardiovascular disease than anything that has to do with multivitamins.
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