About half of Americans pop a multivitamin before they start their day. Most believe this helps safeguard their health.
According to Alternet.org, multivitamins are the most popular dietary supplement on Earth. But over the months, evidence is suggesting that multivitamins do little for our health. In fact, some evidence suggests they may even shorten our lives.
Unless you are taking vitamins to make up for a deficiency within your body, those multis are doing little to benefit you.
In the past, the Journal of the American Medicine Association recommended that all adults should take one multi every day.
Doctors across the nation were recommending multis to their patients until recently.
For the past few years, doctors now have cut back on recommending multis to patients, stemming from two large studies that suggest the change.
The following is an exerpt about the two studies from the article from Alternet.org:
"The first study, published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2006, combed through 63 randomized, controlled trials (the highest standard of research) on multivitamins. Turns out they did absolutely nothing to prevent cancer or heart disease in most people, with the exception of those in developing countries, where nutritional deficiencies are common. In a second paper,published in 2009, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center followed 160,000 postmenopausal women for about 10 years, and found that multivitamins did zilch to prevent cancer, heart disease and all causes of death, regardless of what the women were eating"
Read the full article here: http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/are-vitamins-useless