BLOG: CRN weighs in on vitamin supplements and heart disease, cancer
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The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a final report at the end of February, Vitamin, Mineral and Multivitamin Supplements for the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer, which concluded that evidence is insufficient to recommend the use of vitamin supplements as primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
This final report was a follow-up to a draft report issued in December 2013 that resulted in a flurry of media on the negative “results” on multivitamins. One headline read: “Case closed: Experts decide multivitamins are useless.”
Duffy MacKay, ND, senior VP of scientific and regulatory affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), a trade association representing the dietary supplement industry, responded to the report in a press release from the CRN saying this conclusion should not be more broadly interpreted.
MacKay said in the release that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) made “no recommendations on the value of vitamins and minerals for overall health and wellness or for filling nutrient gaps, the area for which research tells us that consumers are most likely to take them.
"The report’s conclusion that there is ‘…not enough evidence…’ for recommendations in the areas of cancer and cardiovascular disease should not be considered as a lack of benefit, as there is a big difference between lack of research and lack of positive results,” MacKay continued. “Even with a current gap in the research, what few studies met the USPSTF criteria pointed to a potential promise for cancer protection.”
MacKay commended the task force for acknowledging the challenges in studying nutrients using methods similar to those used for pharmaceutical agents.
“More important, the final report calls for new and innovative research methodologies – which is in contrast to the suggestion by a medical journal that called for the end of vitamin research when the draft report was published,” MacKay said in the release. “We strongly support both the need for more research and the need for the scientific community to come to terms with a rigorous approach to studying nutrition that may not reflect the current model of studying drugs.
"In the meantime, there are real-life reasons why people should take vitamins and why so many doctors recommend them,” MacKay concluded.