Multivitamins reduce mortality in women, but only if combined with minerals.

The Journal of Nutrition just published a study that suggests life-extending benefits of taking vitamin and mineral supplements. Multivitamin with minerals products are the most commonly used supplements in the United States, followed by multivitamin products without minerals. While prior studies did not show an effect of such supplements in preventing deaths from cardiovascular disease, however, no previous trial looked for potential benefits just in women.

This new study examined the effect of a multivitamin with or without minerals on 8678 men and women. An adjustment was made for many potential confounders, that is factors that could have influenced the results, including age, race, education, weight (body mass index), alcohol, aspirin use, serum lipids (cholesterol, etc), blood pressure, and blood glucose.

The researchers observed no significant association between mortality due to cardiovascular disease in users of supplements compared with nonusers. However, when users were classified by the reported length of time products were used, a significant association was found with the use of multivitamins with minerals if they were taken for more than three years, compared with nonusers. This finding applied only to women and only to multivitamin products that also included minerals.

Magnesium is one of the minerals which is always included in combination vitamin products. Many studies have shown a beneficial effect of magnesium on cardiovascular and other causes of death in both women and men. And, of course, taking magnesium prevents migraine headaches since magnesium deficiency is found in up to 50% of migraine sufferers.