- The perceived health benefits of multivitamins may be due to a placebo effect, a new study suggests.
- Researchers did not find any measurable health advantages between people who took multivitamins and those who didn't.
- People who took vitamins were more likely to report that they thought they were healthier, however, indicating there may be a small psychological boost linked to the supplements.
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People who take multivitamins report feeling healthier, but there's no evidence they actually fare better when it comes to rates of chronic disease, mental health, and overall wellbeing, according to a study published this month in BMJ Open.
Researchers from multiple medical schools, including Harvard and Yale, looked at data of 21,603 adult Americans from a 2012 national survey to determine how many took multivitamins, and if there were any measurable health benefits of doing so.
They found that the 4,933 participants who took multivitamins regularly were 30% more likely to rate themselves as having good to excellent health compared to people who didn't take multivitamins.
However, there was no evidence that multivitamins actually improved health. Both groups had similar rates of illness and chronic diseases. There was no statistically significant difference between the two group in any other measures of health after adjusting for variables such as age, income, and education.
That suggests that multivitamins may have a placebo effect due to the perception that they can boost health.
That may be particularly true for users who are healthy but anxious about fending off illness or "optimizing" their wellbeing through supplements and alternative therapies, according to the researchers.
"The effect of positive expectations in the [multivitamin] user community is made even stronger when one considers that the majority of [multivitamins] and supplements are sold to the so-called 'worried-well' population," they wrote in the study.
Multivitamins are big business, despite the lack of evidence
This study also found people who took multivitamins tended to be older and to have a higher income than those who didn't.
Vitamin supplements are a $36 billion industry, regardless of the dubious claims about their health benefits, Business Insider previously reported. In particular, chewable gummy vitamins have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, with sales of such products doubling from 2014 to 2018, according to the Nutrition Business Journal.
But extensive research suggests that vitamins aren't a panacea for health. In most cases, they have little to no benefit for general health or risk of illness, as study after study has shown.
The exception to this is people who may have nutritional deficiencies, such as pregnant women or people on restrictive diets. And in some cases, certain supplements like Vitamin D may be helpful for specific uses like bolstering your immune system, particularly in winter months when people have less access to sunshine, a natural source of the nutrient.
For the most part, though, the proven benefits of vitamins don't come close to the hype, and your wallet could suffer serious side effects.
"The multibillion-dollar nature of the nutritional supplement industry means that understanding the determinants of widespread [multivitamin] use has significant medical and financial consequences," concludes the most recent study.
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