First Health Associates Responds to Vitamin Supplement Study

There has been some recent press on dietary supplements and mortality risk after a recent study published in the archives of internal medicine¹. At First Health, we were a bit alarmed by this study because despite some obvious flaws in design, the study still hit mainstream media and has the potential (like many media blips) to cause some confusion.

The main issue in the study was that it was a correlation study, not a causation study, meaning that it was simply an observation in data and does not suggest that supplements are the cause of mortality.

There were several important aspects of the study not mentioned in the media blips that we feel are warrant mention:

Segmented Population:

The study followed a group of women (50-69 years old) for 18 years, making the age range by the end of the study was 68-87 years old.

Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT):

This population has a higherincidence of HRT which has been shown to carry certain health risks. One finding in the study was that supplement users were also more likely to use HRT, which could have been a significant attributor to the statistical findings

Drug-Nutrient Interactions:

This population currently takes on average 5 or more medications per day. This drastically increases the risk for drug-nutrient interactions, making unguided supplement use a potentially hazardous practice.

Individual Micronutrients:

Dosing with large amounts of individual nutrients can lead to toxicity and block the absorption of other key nutrients from food. For example, Copper supplements block Zinc uptake, and were highlighted in the research as a risk factor.

Un-Guided Use:

Subjects in this study were self-prescribing supplements and like many patients, were likely not discussing their supplement regimen with their medical care team.

It has been our observation that by educating patients on proper dietary supplement intake through an integrated care process, supplements are a valuable tool used to improve health and promote healthy life years (HLY). Based on the vast amount of positive research available on dietary supplements in the treatment and support of many medical conditions, we at First Health Associates continue to support the use of supplements for health promotion. We do however feel that there is value to this study that further indicates the importance for professional guidance when using supplements, and we strongly encourage patients to discuss their supplementation regimen with their medical care team in order to integrate nutritional components into the care plan as opposed to supplementing the care plan with individual nutrients.