They are the nutrition top-up of choice for millions of people, but if you think swallowing multivitamins will help you live a day longer than otherwise, you’re probably wrong.
A team of US doctors and scientists studied around 300,000 people over 20 years and found taking the would-be elixirs "was not associated with a mortality benefit."
"Multivitamin use to improve longevity is not supported" by their research, the team said, in findings published by JAMA Network Open, an American Medical Association journal.
Despite multivitamins making little apparent difference to longevity, including among unhealthy people or poor eaters, "many US adults report using [them] to maintain or improve health," the team said, estimating the pills to be taken by around 1 in 3 people in the US.
The researchers followed up on a 2022 report that could not find evidence either way that taking multivitamins was beneficial or harmful.
The latest study sought to take into account that the so-called "healthy user effect" which confounds the efficacy of multivitamins. In this case, people who take the supplements typically eat better, are less likely to smoke and are more likely to exercise than people who don’t bother with multivitamins.
Multivitamin supplements continue to be marketed as boosting immunity, energy levels, vitality and "overall wellbeing," however this research adds to a growing number of damning studies and surveys to have found little to no benefit from taking multivitamins.
"While the likelihood of harm is small, the likelihood of a clear health benefit is also very small — and also we have no clear proof yet of such benefit," according to the Harvard Medical School.
