I found this article on Yahoo's Top News Section.

The researchers are trying to assert that women who take vitamins are at risk greater risk for dying than women who do not take vitamins. The research design is flawed since they do not take health conditions, etc. into consideration!

http://news.yahoo.com/vitamins-may-increase-womens-risk-dying-research-finds-212402256.html

What the ...bleep??     ....well I hope they figure it out before I keel over!

They would prove that eating healthy is worse for your health lol

They just want to shock people into asking the site questions - they charge for answers? and you have to put in credit card details before you get an answer.


follow the money

There are some things I agree with and some things I don't agree with in this article...  This is only personal opinion!

First, I think that most people would be better off if they didn't take the majority of supplements on the market and ate a healthier diet.  Where the problem is, however, is that no one can agree on what the "healthier diet" is or what "garbage" supplements are...

All I know is that BTD/GTD/SWAMI are the healthiest diets I've ever tried...

I don't agree with the last line -

Quoted Text

"Therefore, we believe that politicians and regulatory authorities should wake up to their responsibility to allow only safe products on the market," they wrote.

Since when did the majority of politicians and regulatory authorities know what was best (or even "safe") for anyone except their pocketbooks or largest donors?

The article contains very misleading statements and yes, the title is an attention grabber. I am hoping that this is not a part of the effort to regulate supps and vitamins.

It's my right to take what I want to take.

Quoted from ABJoe

Since when did the majority of politicians and regulatory authorities know what was best (or even "safe") for anyone except their pocketbooks or largest donors?

I Agree!

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Hello everyone,
I totally agree with Ribbit, we should have the God given right in this country of ours to take whatever supplements we want to take to help keep us healthy as possible. I just wish that the Govt. would keep their dirty little paws off of our supplements and herbals along with everything else they would like to regulate and take over. They are just getting way too big for their britches. It just drives me nuts on how they want to tell us how to live our lives. In this great country of ours, we practice certain God given freedoms and we should be able to continue to practice these freedom as much as we want without the stupid govt. interfering and sticking their dirty little noses in where in does not belong. That is just my opinion. After all, we are americans and not just some manipulating toy the govt. can play with, we are ourselves and can make our own decisions especially when it comes to taking care of our own health.
Well, again that is my own rant.
Everyone take care and keep on hoping and keep on signing those petitions concerning our freedoms, we need to keep fighting for them.
Footprints.

I admit to not actually reading the article - but -

1. The reason why someone takes supplements should be considered, maybe ill/dying therefore trying anything to help our/them selves.
2. Don't doubt that it will be a drip drip to control supplements as still ongoing.
3. If we look at some of the ingredients in some supplements, then they are rubbish!
Unfotunately #3 give ammo to #2

Just MO of course!!!

On a program I was watching the other day, they spoke of many companies supplements not having in them what was claimed and also there being toxic substances in them. I saw a money trail attached to it. I believe there are efforts being made to instill fear in us so that big pharma can take over to give us a trusted product and more money in their pockets. We just need to be wise in our choices. Choose reputable companies. Take supplements only when necessary, not to replace real food. It is MY choices that made me well. I am sure I would be dead today if I did not choose the path I chose.

Quoted from passionprincess

I found this article on Yahoo's Top News Section.

The researchers are trying to assert that women who take vitamins are at risk greater risk for dying than women who do not take vitamins. The research design is flawed since they do not take health conditions, etc. into consideration!

http://news.yahoo.com/vitamins-may-increase-womens-risk-dying-research-finds-212402256.html

Who funded that study... Merck?  

Also, a lot of 'vitamin companies' trying to jump on the bandwagon, formulate multi vitamins with all kinds of mixtures of herbs and weird components to try to sell it to people.  Like Hydroxicut was causing liver failure!  I have to take my vitamins separetaly because most of them use citrus and I can't tolerate it.  Or they use a herb combination that gives me a migraine or blurred vision. So..I make my own

Now that vitamins come in the form of gummy bears the article may be on to something  

Everything we put into our bodies must be used prudently and intelligently.

Maybe those woman took supplements because their eating habits were so crappy and without the vitamins they would have died even sooner...

No discernment of quality and sourcing.

Taken out of context, this could be used to support "protecting" the public.

Freedom of choice and education, please.

"For example, of the 12,769 women in the study who took a daily multivitamin, 40.8 percent had died by the end of 2008, whereas 39.8 percent of the 10,161 women who hadn't taken a daily multivitamin had died."

40.8% vs 39.8% ???? Is that even statistically significant?

Never mind the quality of the vitamins being taken, what the "supplement users" ate vs what the "non-supplemnet users" ate, and if the "supplement users" had underlying health conditions- but is there even a difference between the two groups to start with? All this speculation is worthless if the underlying premise is invalid.

All  I can really take away from this study is "taking multivitamins does not make women live longer."

if so, the whole orthomolecular medicine would be for nothing and Linus Pauling and Avram Hoffer would have been wrong with their trouvailles and statements and even all the orgalines of us would be worthless.... ha-ha-haaaa!!!  

http://www.orthomed.org...  

It was pointed out by Dr. Richard Besser on GMA this morning that no one had evaluated the health of the people in the study and he even said himself that maybe the people taking more of the vitamins were sicker to start with.  The problem is that people just hear headlines.  They don't read "the lines" no less "between the lines."
Jane

Plus some unscrupulous vitamin companies have their vitamins tainted with lead which doesn't help the situation. Like Vitamin Shoppe got in trouble for that.   What about Solgar who killed a few people with their L-Tryptophan?  I worked with a lawyer who's mother was one of those people.

I thought Solgar was the best though DPN NAP is best, but I must take note Diana, as their Rose C has corn ascorbate, after what you wrote i cancel them from my shopping list !

Ruthie, I was thinking along the same lines as you. Women who were around age 62 at its start in 1986, would have been "around" 80 by 2004.
A 1% difference doesn't seem significant given the age gap.  Perhaps those taking the vitamins had health issues and would have died younger without the vitamins
I wonder who funded the study? And agree with others it sounds suspiciously like a Government study where they'd like to scare people away from taking supplements and provide more business to the pharmaceuticals.

This article and variations of it on the internet have gone Viral.

"As it says the vitamin industry is $25 billion a year in the U.S. That $25 billion the tip of the iceberg indicating a bit of grass root counterculture competition.

The researchers said the findings suggest that supplements should only be used if there is a strong medically-based cause for doing so because of the potential to cause harm."

They do want control and they do want you to have their permission to use their supplements.

“Based on existing evidence, we see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements,” Dr Jaakko Mursu, a nutritional epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and his research colleagues said according to BBC News.

“I think the main message is researchers are finding very little benefit from these substances,” Mursu told Janice Lloyd of USA TODAY. “Other studies have not shown the mortality risk our study shows, but those studies have not seen any positive effect either.”"

Of 15 supplements analyzed, only calcium was associated with lower risk of death. “This paper contributes to the growing amount of studies showing no benefits for supplement use in the prevention of chronic diseases,” Mursu, who also is affiliated with the University of Eastern Finland, told Eryn Brown of the Los Angeles Times.

The research team found in the study data that supplement use was widespread and increased over the years. In 1986, 65 percent of the women reported taking one supplement daily. By 1997, that number was up to 75 percent; and by 2004, up to 85 percent.

Among the 38,772 women who started the study in 1986, 15,594 died within the course of the 19 year study. However, the research did not explore whether supplements contributed to the causes of death among the women.

Mursu said the findings focus on the higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease, cancer and other causes, but not on how the supplements and vitamins may have affected health. “There is much more research needed to begin to understand that,” he told USA Today.
-------------------
Likewise they did not comment on or focus on how the supplements may have adversely reacted with the profoundly abundant number of known side effects and chemical interactions of these women's medically prescribed systemic manipulators.

They did not comment on the quality of the vitamins (I do not want to imagine how one-a-day feels in my 80 yr old digestive track), though there is a ground wave of doubt throughout the scientific community that only they can make suitable and "scientifically validated" miraculously manipulated and patented concoctions for human consumption.

Oh, but I do not think they want to look real closely at how some of those miraculous products affect mortality; what with physician prescribed medications as a leading the the cause of death.

Accidental death from prescription drugs, even when they are correctly given, is now the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.Before you pop another prescription pill, think carefully. Just because your doctor prescribed it is no guarantee you’ll benefit from it or even emerge unscathed from the experience. That prescription pill could be hazardous to your health - and life.

I got this link in my email today:

http://www.anh-usa.org/shame-on-ama-archives-of-internal-medicine/

Thanks Ruthiegirl,

Hopefully the sensationalist loving media that spread the original article or news.yahoo.com will publish that article with as much fan-fair as they did the anti-supplement propoganda...

http://www.anh-usa.org/shame-on-ama-archives-of-internal-medicine/

It is a much more accurate account.