Multivitamins may work wonders, but a low potency multi won’t do anyone much good

Hold the balloons

“Multivitamin Cuts Cancer Risk.”

Usually, a headline like that would call for celebration. And we would start the celebrating right here.

But once you get into the fine print, the claim just doesn’t hold up.

That’s too bad. What’s worse, it’s a missed opportunity. This research might have been substantial, if only…

But we can salvage something from this study. It’s a cautionary note about what you should demand in a high quality multivitamin.

Hard pill to swallow

For about 11 years, more than 14,600 men took the multivitamin Centrum Silver.

The study calls the outcome a “statistically significant reduction in the incidence of total cancer.”

In research language, that means it just barely registers. It’s scant. The actual reduction was just 8%.

Meanwhile, there was no significant effect on individual cancers. There was also no significant difference in the risk of cancer mortality. So any headlines about Centrum “combating” cancer are exaggerated. And that’s being generous.

Now, imagine if researchers had used a supplement with higher potency. That’s a study that might have produced invaluable insights about multi benefits.

Centrum potency is laughably low. For instance…

* Vitamin C — Just 60 mg. Paltry.

* Vitamin D — 500 IU. You get that much D from summer sun exposure in less than two minutes.

* Vitamin E — Only 50 IU. Ridiculous. But that might be a good thing. It’s the same lousy synthetic form that we’ve seen used in too many E studies.

So why did the researchers use Centrum?

Here’s my guess: It was a blatant kowtowing to the Big Kahuna corporate player behind the scenes.

You see, Pfizer makes Centrum. And Pfizer supplied the supplements and placebos. That’s more than 29,000,000 multivitamin pills, and a similar number of placebo pills.

So Pfizer didn’t fund the study. But the company played a key role and made a sizeable investment. And needless to say, it had a huge stake in the outcome.

That might explain why the authors wrote in the conclusion to the study… “Daily multivitamin supplementation modestly but significantly reduced the risk of total cancer.”

Modestly but significantly?

No. That’s absurd. It can’t be both.

Modest? Yes. But notice they avoided the phrase “statistically significant” in their conclusion. They shorthanded it to “significantly.” Risk reduction of 60% would be significant. Even 40% would pass as significant.

But 8%? No. That is NOT significant. But I suspect Pfizer executives were more than happy to see it described that way.

Sources:
“Multivitamins in the Prevention of Cancer in Men: The Physicians’ Health Study II Randomized Controlled Trial” Journal of the American Medical Association, Published online ahead of print, 10/17/12, jama.jamanetwork.com

“Multivitamin Cuts Cancer Risk, Large Study Finds” Ron Winslow, The Wall St. Journal, 10/17/12, online.wsj.com