Vitamin pills may raise death rate
If you are banking on a vitamin supplement daily to make up for any deficiencies in your diet,you bargained for,
researchers in europe have carried out a study and found that people who rely on vitamin pills, instead of eating a healthy diet of fresh fruits and vegetables,are doing more harm than good.
According to them,three supplements,vitamin A,vitamin E and beta carotene,can increase mortality rates among those taking them.however,vitamin C and selenium pills have no effects as such.
“our finding contradict the findings of observational studies claiming that antioxidants(commonly found in vitamin supplements) improve health,”british media quoted lead researcher goran bjelakovic of copenhagen universisty hospital in denmark as saying.
The researchers combined results of a number of clinical trials to judge the overall effects of vitamin pills.they analysed 47 low-bias trials,involving 180,938 people and found that vitamin supplements as a whole increased their death rate by five percent. When the supplements were taken seperately, beta carotene increased death rates by seven per cent, vitamin A by 16 per cent, and vitamin E by four per cent . Vitamin C gave contradictory results, but when given singly or in combination with other vitamins in good quality trails, increased the death rate by six per cent, the researchers found. They, however, noticed that selenium was the only supplement to emerge with any credit, it can cut death rates by ten per cent when given on its own or as supplements, but’ the result is not statisitically significant.’
March 17th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I read recently that CODEX is limiting certain dosages of vitamins, for example apparently over 300 milligrams of vitamin C per day increases mortality rate in diabetics, but was disregarded by various sources.
I think in the “nanny” world we live in we will constantly be told things are bad for us, and then in a huge turnaround then be good for us in moderation, much like tea and chocolate etc..