Multivitamin supplements have become a routine addition to many Americans’ diets, with as many as 1 in 3 U.S. adults consuming them regularly, but are these daily doses improving overall health and longevity?
A study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) published Wednesday found that multivitamins won’t help extend your life, with researchers reporting, “multivitamin use to improve longevity is not supported.”
The study analyzed data from nearly 400,000 adults over 20 years. Participants had a median age of 61.5 years old and were generally healthy, with no history of chronic diseases, according to the study published in JAMA Network Open.
The study found no evidence that daily multivitamin consumption reduced the risk of death from conditions such as heart disease or cancer.
Rather than living longer, otherwise healthy people who took daily multivitamins were slightly more likely (4%) than non-users to die in the study period, according to researchers.
Researchers reported nearly 165,000 deaths occurring during the follow-up period of the study, out of the initial group of 390,000 participants.
