Vitamins and Good Sense
Just silly. Blenderizing these diverse trials into one giant 232,606-patient-strong study to come up with a seductively simple proclamation is just silly. When the researchers tallied up the mortality from the 68 trials, there was no difference based on vitamin intake. The headlines that these supplements significantly increase the risk of death by 5 percent overall came only when the researchers pulled out the 47 trials they deemed to have been the best executed. Actually, in the 21 randomized trials they peeled off, mortality was decreased by 9 percent among those taking the vitamins.
Sure, statistics can prove anything. But this study violates a cardinal rule of meta-analysis. Pooled studies must be compatible. That means combining apples and apples—or at the least, similar patients and comparable doses and duration of treatments. The first question to ask in evaluating any such study is whether the combination makes sense, both common sense and medical sense, in the first place. On both, the study flunks.
Where does this leave us? With the same advice that we had before: Don't smoke. Consume at least five fruits and vegetables daily; go easy on the saturated fats; enjoy fish and maybe even fish oil tablets; take supplemental calcium and vitamin D until studies say otherwise. And assuming your daily diet isn't always perfect, its just fine to add on a multivitamin. The whole package will help you live longer. And I don't need a meta-analysis to say so.
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