8/12/2019 By Brenda Goodman

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8/12/2019 By Brenda Goodman

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"Research shows that the two main reasons people take multivitamins are for overall health andwellness and to fill in nutrient gaps," MacKay said. "Science still demonstrates that multivitaminswork for those purposes, and that alone provides reason for people to take a multivitamin."

However, Guallar said, it's not clear that taking supplements to fill gaps in a less-than-perfect dietreally translates into any kind of health boost.

"It would be great if all dietary problems could be solved with a pill," he said. "Unfortunately, that'snot the case."

For the first study, researchers randomly assigned almost 6,000 male doctors over the age of 65 totake either a daily Centrum Silver multivitamin or a look-alike placebo pill. Every few years, theresearchers gave the men a battery of tests over the telephone to check their memories.

The men in the study were in pretty good health to begin with, and 84 percent said they faithfullytook their pills each day.

After 12 years, there was no difference in memory problems between the two groups.

"No matter which way we broke it down, there was a null effect," said study author JacquelineO'Brien, a research associate at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "Supplements are oftenmarketed to have benefits for brain health and things like that, and this is a pretty clear takeawaymessage."

The same study, however, has previously found that multivitamins might modestly reduce the risk ofcancer and cataracts . Cancer risk was reduced by 8 percent, while the risk of cataracts dropped by 9percent, compared to placebo.

In the second study, researchers randomly assigned 1,700 heart attack survivors enrolled in a trial oftherapy known as intravenous chelation to a daily regimen of high doses of vitamins and minerals orplacebo pills.

Participants were asked to take six large pills a day, and researchers think many developed pill

fatigue. Nearly half the participants in each part of the study stopped taking their medication beforethe end of the study. The average time people stuck with it was about two and a half years.

After an average of 55 months, there was no significant difference between the two groups in acomposite measure that counted the number of deaths, second heart attacks, strokes, episodes ofserious chest pain and procedures to open blocked arteries.

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8/12/2019 By Brenda Goodman

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The third study, a research review, assessed the evidence from 27 studies on vitamin and mineralsupplements that included more than 450,000 people. That study, conducted for the U.S. PreventiveServices Task Force, found no evidence that supplements offer a benefit for heart disease or thatthey delay death from any cause. They found only a minimal benefit for cancer risk.

The results of the studies are so clear and consistent, the editorial writers said, that it's time to stopwasting research money looking for evidence of a benefit.

"The probability of a meaningful effect is so small that it's not worth doing study after study andspending research dollars on these questions," Guallar said.