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A multivitamin a day may keep heart attacks away



A multivitamin a day may keep heart attacks away

Readers will be familiar with my evaluation that supplementing one’s diet with good multivitamin is smart in today’s modern world.

According to new a study published online in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, women who took a one-a-day supplement were 40 per cent less likely to suffer a heart attack than their peers who didn’t use multivitamins. A Nurses’ Health Study reported that regular multivitamin use was linked with a 24 per cent lower risk of heart disease. A study of more than one million healthy U.S. adults, demonstrated that multivitamins were associated with a 25 per cent lower risk of dying from heart disease.

Another study included 33,933 Swedish women aged 49 to 83 years, the vast majority (93 per cent) having no history of heart disease. At 10 years of follow up, women who were free of heart disease upon enrolling in the study, taking a daily multivitamin reduced the risk of heart attack by 27 per cent. The protective effect was stronger among women who used multivitamins for at least five years. Compared with women who didn’t take supplements, those who took multivitamins for five years or longer were 40 per cent less likely to have a heart attack.

Researchers accounted for body weight, physical activity, smoking status and other heart risk factors, and the results remained unchanged. To what extent researchers to into account that people who take vitamins tend to be more affluent (an important health determinant) and/or more likely to live a healthier lifestyle is not addressed in the report I read.

(Generally, the more affluent a person, the greater the access and use of health and lifestyle knowledge, health care services, nutritious food, nutritional supplements, fitness and recreational opportunities, living up-wind of sources of pollution, etc.)

Multivitamin use did not alter the risk of heart attack among women with a history of heart disease. While multivitamins may have a protective effect, they do not have a curative effect.

There are a number of ways in which a multivitamin may defend against heart disease. Multivitamins contain antioxidant nutrients – vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, selenium – that could lessen artery damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals are produced naturally when we breathe, but ultraviolet light, cigarette smoking, and the consumption of alcohol are other sources. In high amounts, free radicals contribute to the formation of fatty plaques in the arteries that, if ruptured, can cause a heart attack.

Multivitamins also contain the B vitamins folate, B6 and B12, which have been shown to lower blood homocysteine, an amino acid made by the body during normal metabolism. High homocysteine is thought to damage artery walls and increase the risk of heart disease.

Magnesium – a mineral that most Canadians don’t get enough of – can help prevent diabetes (a major risk factor for heart disease), reduce inflammation and promote normal blood pressure.

In the current study, multivitamins contained essential vitamins and minerals at doses that closely matched recommended daily intakes. The value of taking “mega-doses” of vitamins, or micro-managing vitamin intake is questionable.

While supplementing your diet with daily multivitamins may offer some protection, the basis of your health is dependent on a healthy lifestyle. It is foolish to expect supplements to save a person from a negligent lifestyle.

The following strategies can help you lower your risk of developing heart disease.

Look for vitamins A, C, D, E, B1, B2, niacin, B6, folic acid and B12. Choose a formula that provides 100 per cent the recommended daily intake for B6 (1.3 to 1.7 mg), B12 (2.4 mcg) and folic acid (400 mcg). Look for the minerals chromium, copper, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc.

Premenopausal women should choose a multivitamin supplement with 10 to 18 mg of iron; postmenopausal women and men should look for no more than five to 10 milligrams of iron.

Credit to Leslie Beck, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/a-multivitamin-a-day-may-keep-heart-attacks-away/article1730894

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