Multivitamins do not offer lifespan boost

Taking multivitamin supplements daily does not appear to translate to a longer life, as shown in a study.

For the study, researchers used data from three prospective cohort studies in the US, with each study having data on baseline multivitamin use (assessed from 1993 to 2001) and follow-up multivitamin use (assessed from 1998 to 2004), extended duration of follow-up up to 27 years, and extensive characterization of potential confounders.

The total study population consisted of 390,124 adults (median age 61.5 years, 55.4 percent male) without a history of cancer or other chronic diseases. Of these participants, 327,732 were from the National Institutes of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study; 42,732 were from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial; and 19,660 were from the Agricultural Health Study.

Over 7,861,485 person-years of follow-up, 164,762 deaths were recorded, with 49,836 deaths attributed to cancer, 35,060 attributed to heart diseases, and 9,275 attributed to cerebrovascular diseases.

Among multivitamin users, 49.3 percent were female and 42.0 percent were college educated as compared with 39.3 percent and 37.9 percent among nonusers, respectively. However, a lower proportion of multivitamin users vs nonusers were current smokers (11.0 percent vs 13.0 percent).

Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models showed no all-cause mortality-lowering benefit with multivitamin use both in the first (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR], 1.04, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.02–1.07) or second (aHR, 1.04, 95 percent CI, 0.99–1.08) halves of follow-up. Results were consistent in analyses of major causes of death and time-varying analyses.