The Killer Vitamin Hype

Headlines around the world during May 2008 would have us believe that vitamin supplements are not only useless, but can actually increase your risk of death.

The study was authored by Dr. Goran Bjelakovic, a visiting researcher at the Copenhagen Trial Unit in Denmark and a professor at the University of Nis in Serbia and Montenegro.

This so called groundbreaking “research” is nothing new, Bjelakovic has presented this study in the past, and the press release’s revelations are nothing more than a rehash of a study first published in February 2007 in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association).

The study that Bjelakovic and his group conducted was simply a meta-analysis, a study of other studies. His study was done on previous trials involving people who had been taking high dosage antioxidants because of serious health problems.

He and his group “searched electronic databases and reference lists”.
“We scanned bibliographies of relevant publications and wrote to pharmaceutical companies for additional trials.”

The conclusions of this study were that treatment with beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E may increase mortality. The basis of this conclusion was that 13.1% of the already ill participants who were taking an antioxidant died, compared with 10.5% who were taking a placebo or neither. 

The studies where Bjelakovic’s data was collected from were conducted with synthetic vitamins. As Bjelakovic himself states in his report : “The present review does not assess the effects of antioxidants contained in fruits or vegetables.”

This means that the study has no relevance to plant based nutritional supplements. Countless scientific studies have been conducted proving the effectiveness of antioxdants in preventing disease.