Vitamin supplements not a waste of money, says dietitian

An Irish dietitian has clashed with a group of leading American scientists who believe that vitamin supplements should be avoided because they have no health benefit.

Sarah Keogh, a dietitian with the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, said she would not write off vitamin supplements as a waste of money.

She was commenting on three studies published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that gave supplements the thumbs down.

After reviewing three trials of multivitamin supplements and 24 trials of single or paired vitamins involving more than 400,000 people, the authors found that they had no beneficial effect on mortality.

One study examined 5,947 elderly men and found that taking a multivitamin supplement had no effect on cognitive decline after 12 years.

Another followed 1,708 men and women with heart problems and found that it did not prevent further cardiac events.

An editorial in the medical journal said the studies and previous trials indicated there was no health benefits from taking multivitamins.

The headline read: “Enough is enough; stop wasting money on vitamin and mineral supplements”.

Ms Keogh said she was concerned about two of the studies.

“One looked at age-related decline in brain function, but the participants were not given the supplements until age 65. We do know that at that stage that a lot of the damage has already taken place.”

While it was interesting that the supplements did not prevent any further decline, she did not think it could be assumed that they would not have an effect if taken at a younger age.

Ms Keogh said the second study looked at people who had a heart attack and again, the participants were only given the supplements after they had a heart attack.

“By the time someone has a heart attack, they are already quite unwell and the heart disease would have been there for quite a few years.”

She believed there were huge benefits from taking specific vitamins, particularly folic acid and vitamin D and was concerned that people would stop taking vitamins or supplements after reading about the latest studies.

Ms Keogh said more research was needed on the effects of vitamin supplements. “It would be useful to distinguish between taking a general multivitamin and specific vitamins for very specific reasons.”