Long-Term Dietary Supplementation Found to Benefit Health Status.

A recently published study found that people who used multiple dietary supplements for at least 20 years were in better overall health than non-supplement users and those who used only a multivitamin/mineral product. The study was published online in advance of the print issue of Nutrition Journal (DOI:10.1186/1475-2891-6-30). Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley examined dietary supplement usage patterns and health and nutritional status of individuals using a cross-sectional design study of long-term users of multiple dietary supplements (n=278), non-users (n=602), and multi-only users (n=176), obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Long-term multiple dietary supplement users consumed an array of vitamin, mineral, herbal and condition-specific supplements for at least 20 years. As a group, they were 73% less likely to have diabetes and 39% less likely to have high blood pressure than non-users. They were also less likely to have suboptimal blood nutrient concentrations, and more likely to have favorably levels of key biomarkers, including serum homocysteine, C-reactive protein (CRP), high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and triglycerides, compared with non-users and people taking only a multivitamin/mineral. Dietary supplements consumed on a daily basis by more than 50% of multiple supplement users included a multivitamin/mineral, B complex, vitamin C, carotenoids, vitamin E, calcium with vitamin D, omega-3 fatty acids, flavonoids, lecithin, alfalfa, coenzyme Q10, glucosamine and herbal-immune supplements. The majority of women in this group also took gamma linolenic acid (GLA) and probiotics; men also took zinc, garlic, saw palmetto and soy protein. Researchers concluded that their results supported the potential benefit of long-term use of dietary supplements.