Multivitamins don't boost heart health, a huge new study has found, giving weight to what dozens of other experts have been saying all along — that supplements offer very little benefit to the average healthy person, NBC News reported.
Some people need to supplement their diets with multivitamins, such as pregnant women and people with vitamin deficiencies or heart disease who have been given prescriptions from their doctors, NBC News noted. However, for the average person hoping to counteract the effects of poor lifestyle choices, multivitamins will do very little to reduce their risk of heart disease.
The new report, published Tuesday in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, analyzed data from 18 other studies conducted between 1970 and 2016, which followed more than 2 million people for an average of 18 years.
Researchers found no link between taking multivitamin and mineral supplements and a lower risk of death from cardiovascular diseases.
"One of the big problems with multivitamin use is that it could deviate the public from following the measures that are proven to be beneficial for cardiovascular health, including eating fruits and vegetables, and doing more exercise," said study lead author Joonseok Kim, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, according to the American Heart Association.
The report comes shortly after another study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology had similar findings.
Despite these findings, about one-third of all people in the U.S. use multivitamin and mineral supplements, with the global nutritional supplement industry expected to reach $278 billion by 2024, according the to American Heart Association.
There has been longstanding controversy about the effectiveness of these supplements and the American Heart Association does not recommend using these products to prevent cardiovascular diseases.
"Although multivitamin and mineral supplements taken in moderation rarely cause direct harm, we urge people to protect their heart health by understanding their individual risk for heart disease and stroke and working with a healthcare provider to create a plan that uses proven measures to reduce risk," Kim said in a the AHA news release. "These include a heart-healthy diet, exercise, tobacco cessation, controlling blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels, and when needed, medical treatment."
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