Call me crazy, but I thought that the chance of death was already somewhere around 100 per cent. Still, this seems like one of the more unlikely reports I’ve seen in a while. From the Guardian:
Vitamin supplements taken by millions of people do not increase life expectancy and may raise the risk of a premature death , according to a review of 67 studies with more than 230,000 subjects.
[…] In 47 trials with 180,938 people and a low risk of bias, the “antioxidant supplements significantly increased mortality”, the authors wrote. When the antioxidants were assessed separately and low risk of bias trials were included and selenium excluded, vitamin A was linked to a 16% increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7% increased risk and vitamin E to a 4% increased risk.
Evidence for vitamin C and selenium was more equivocal, suggesting there was no benefit to taking these pills compared with a placebo.
There could be a zillion reasons for a slight decrease in life expectancy for vitamin-takers. For one, stressed-out always-on-the-go types who don’t eat very well are probably decreasing their lifespans with their lifestyles, and may pop a lot of pills in a bid to compensate.
Also, people don’t generally take Vitamin C to increase their longevity — they take it to bolster their immune systems and fight off colds. Beating a cold more quickly is not so much a life expectancy issue as a quality-of-life one.
But the report is just interesting enough that I thought I’d mention it here.
Image from Mental Floss.
1 response so far ↓
1 Asher Vijay // Apr 27, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I wonder if eating nutritious food has an effect on Death too…
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