The amazing multivitamin–still impressive after all these years

Wake Up and Smell the Lifestyle

It was a “wake up call.”

That’s how countless heart attack survivors describe their first heart attack. And what do you do after a wake up call? You take stock and make important changes in your life to help keep the old ticker ticking.

Now, research has shown that statin use after a heart attack helps prevent a second heart attack. The evidence reveals that this margin of protection is very small, but it’s there.

What you’ll never hear is this: Maybe that margin isn’t due to the statin. Maybe it’s actually due to healthy changes heart attack victims often make in their lives.

Daily exercise, a better diet, a renewed positive outlook from a “second chance” on life–could these changes provide the protection that the mainstream medical crowd is quick to attribute to statins?

This question occurred to me while reading about a new multivitamin study.

Can you guess where this is going?

Raining caveats

For 10 years, researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet followed the medical records for about 2,260 women with heart disease, and more than 31,600 women with no history of heart disease. Most of the women were over the age of 50. About 60 percent in each group said they used dietary supplements.

Results showed that women without heart disease who took a multivitamin for less than five years reduced their heart attack risk by 18 percent, compared to women who didn’t take a multi. Women in the same group who took a multi for at least 10 years reduced their risk by more than 40 percent.

Great results, right? It’s not a clinical study, so it’s certainly not the last word on the subject. But still, that difference between five years and 10 years, and 18 percent and 40+ percent offers a fairly convincing argument that something positive is going on here.

And now the hailstorm of caveats begins. And we’ve heard it all before: People who use multivitamins and other supplements tend to follow healthy lifestyles, so no one can really say how much of this good outcome is due to the lifestyle and how much to multivitamin use.

The lead researcher, Dr. Susanne Rautiainen, followed that script to a T. She told Reuters Health: “It is very important to keep in mind that multivitamin users tend be ‘healthier’ in general.”

And: “We cannot exclude the possibility that we might measure a healthy lifestyle via multivitamin use.”

I guarantee, you will never hear a statin researcher utter a phrase like that.

The Reuters piece ends with this quote from Dr. Rautiainen: “The question of whether multivitamins are good for you still remains!”

Well…no.

The question of whether multivitamin use reduces heart attack risk in healthy women is not settled–I’ll give you that. But time and again, year after year, we’ve seen population studies like this one produce results that lead to the conclusion that multivitamins are absolutely good for you.

And then there are clinical studies. For instance…

Three years ago, a Harvard study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that multivitamin intervention during pregnancy boosted birth weight in newborns.

Another clinical study tested a multivitamin/multimineral and found that taking calcium and vitamin D in this form with other vitamins and minerals improved bone density more effectively than just taking a calcium supplement along with a D supplement.

I’m all for setting the bar high for proof of evidence. But at this late date, it’s absurd to breezily write off the huge body of positive multivitamin research.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson

Sources:
“Multivitamin use and the risk of myocardial infarction: a population-based cohort of Swedish women” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Published online ahead of print 9/22/10, ajcn.org
“Study hints multivitamins aid women’s heart health” Anne Harding, Reuters Health, 10/1/10, reutershealth.com