Multivitamins- more harm than good?

[kirsty_lee]

I didn't see it this morning, but I have heard that a few times now. My gp told me to stop taking my multi vitamins cause they were stuffing up my iron. It was really weird. By definintion I am boardering on Anemia so you would think multi-vitamins would help some what with the iron in them, but all the multivitamins were doing was increasing my Ferritin levels, so I had to stop taking them

[misty]

If taken in the dosages directed they are fine, and they will fill a gap IF there is a gap to fill. If there is no gap to fill they will do nothing. They are dangerous if you take excessive amounts. The study that they were talking about had a number of sample taking supplements in nearly 5 times the recommended dosage.

Another case of the media grabbing a headline and not clearly stating (or even researching) the actual facts.

Vitamins are always more effective from a direct food source. Multi-vitamins may not be the best method for those people who are low in certain areas because some specific vitamins can actually act to either help or hinder the absorbtion of other vitamins. ie, calcium will prevent the absorbtion of iron, if taken at the same time.

If you are eating across all the food groups adequately a multi-vitamin is most likely unnessecary. However most people (despite what they may think) do not get adequate nutrition from their food, because they do not eat healthily (or not as broadly as they should).

[AnyDream]

This is the sort of shoddy attention grabbing journalism that requires some critical thinking on the part of the viewer.

If you read this article, you will see that the study hypothesises a link between multivitamin use and breast density, which is only a "risk factor" for breast cancer. The abstract itself says

These results suggest that multivitamin use is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. This observed association is of concern and merits further investigation.

Meaning: we're not sure but maybe some one should research this.

I also note that the survey was done on a cohort of women who presented for mammograms, rather than randomly selected from the population at large...so there may have been some bias in the sample to start with. ALSO a lot of the women I know with breast cancer commonly talk about feeling not-themselves or have high-stress events in their lives prior to their diagnosis - so perhaps these women are reaching for the vitamins to try to give themselves a boost after the chain of biochemical events that led to their cancer is well under way.

ETA - Unfortunately this may mean that women who should be taking Vit D to address a deficiency that does have a proven link with breast, bowel and other common cancers may avoid taking it because some twit on the Sunrise program didn't really spell out that it's an early and as yet largely un-investigated finding from a single published (but possibly) flawed study!!!

[PollyA]

Dr Ginni Mansberg
Here's a link to the segment