Taking Daily Multivitamin Not Associated with Lower Risk of Death
, by Elise Tookmanian, Ph.D.
The latest NCI Media Advisory featured research led by Erikka Loftfield, Ph.D., M.P.H., Earl Stadtman investigator in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch (MEB) on regular multivitamin use. The researchers from MEB, the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch (OEEB), and the Biostatistics Branch (BB) discovered that daily multivitamin use was not associated with lower risk of death, and published their findings in JAMA Network Open on June 26, 2024.
The previous research on this topic has been mixed; however the current study has the advantage of relying on comprehensive data on 390,124 healthy U.S. adults from three large, geographically diverse prospective studies with over 20 years of follow up. While this is an important result, the researchers noted that future research should evaluate multivitamin use and risk of death among different kinds of populations, such as those with documented nutritional deficiencies, as well as the potential impact of regular multivitamin use on other health conditions associated with aging.
The research team working with Dr. Loftfield included Caitlin P. O’Connell, M.P.H., research analyst, Christian C. Abnet, Ph.D., M.P.H., branch director and senior investigator, Linda M. Liao, Ph.D., staff scientist, and Rashmi Sinha, Ph.D., senior investigator, all in MEB, Barry I. Graubard, Ph.D., senior investigator in BB, and Laura Beane Freeman, Ph.D., and Jonathan Hofmann, Ph.D., M.P.H., both senior investigators in OEEB.
Read the full Media Advisory on the NCI website.
Reference
Loftfield E et al. Multivitamin Use and Mortality Risk in 3 Prospective U.S. Cohorts. JAMA Network Open. 2024.