Science: Multivitamins Are Worthless

According to three new studies published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, if you buy multivitamins — and U.S. consumers spent $28 billion on them in 2010 — you might as well toss your money into a burning barrel. Turns out, most of us get all the vitamins and minerals we need from, uh, food. And those pills and powders that claim to make us healthier and more vitamany are essentially worthless.

One 12-year study tested the memory of 6,000 male doctors over the age of 65 and found no difference in memory problems between those who took Centrum Silver multivitamins and those who took a placebo.

Another five-year study followed 1,700 people over the age of 50 who had suffered a heart attack; again, no significant gap in health risks between those who took pills and those who didn’t was found.

A third study was a meta-analysis of 27 studies that covered over 450,000 participants and concluded that multivitamins had no beneficial effect on the volunteers.

Not surprisingly, reps for the vitamin industry aren’t convinced the info found in the study was correct. However, it did supply the reps a brilliant idea for their next product: a pill that melts the prefrontal cortex of rabble-rousers who question the benefits of multivitamins.