A New Study Suggests Most Vitamin Supplements Are Worthless

Fitness and health gurus trying to maintain their physiques with the help of popular vitamin supplements are likely to be disheartened thanks to new evidence from a scientific study that posits virtually all of such supplements are nearly useless. A new academic study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology shows that the majority of popular multivitamins didn’t show any real progress when it came to fighting such things as cardiovascular disease or strokes.

According to the new study, which reviewed data and trials from 2012 to October of 2017, there were virtually no preventative benefits stemming from the daily consumption of multivitamins. This isn’t the first time scientist have claimed that such supplements are largely worthless, either, though the new study makes one of the strongest cases yet that common supplements like vitamin D and vitamin C offer virtually no protection at all against common cardiovascular risks that haunt many Americans.

Dr. David Jenkins of St. Michael’s Hospital at the University of Toronto noted that the study’s results were surprising even to professionals, given the popularity of such multivitamin supplements across the broader public.

“We were surprised to find so few positive effects of the most common supplements that people consume,” Jenkins said, per Newsweek.

The study noted that taking these popular multivitamin supplements had no negative effects, either, but was rather final in its assessment that there were essentially no positive benefits of taking them either. Store-bought supplements that are often pushed by marketing firms have long been viewed with suspicion by many health professionals, and the latest study from St. Michael’s Hospital will doubtlessly help convince many more consumers that they’re wasting their money with many over-the-counter sales.

One of the reasons these vitamin supplements are so popular is the scourge of cardiovascular diseases amongst modern Americans; according to Johns Hopkins Health Library, approximately 84 million Americans alone suffer from some form of cardiovascular disease. Americans are thought to spend untold billions on vitamins and herbs that pledge to treat these diseases, though there remains a serious dearth of evidence that they’re actually impactful to one’s health.

In 2015 alone, American shoppers spent roughly $21 billion on vitamins and herbal supplements during their grocery shopping alone, per Healthline. Certain patients and developing children, as well as pregnant women, may nonetheless find certain health benefits when consuming supplements assigned to them by healthcare professionals.

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