Multivitamins have positive effect on heart disease
According to a Tufts University review of evidence from a number of large-scale observational studies, multivitamin use may have a positive effect on the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD), but no impact on mortality.
Epidemiological Studies
Rimm et al. [1] first reported a significant reduction in coronary events with multivitamin use in their 14- year follow up study of 80,082 females from the Nurses’ Health Study who had no history of cancer, angina, MI, stroke, CVD, hypercholesterolemia or diabetes at baseline. More recently, Osganian et al. [2] reported a significantly lower risk of CHD with the use of multivitamins and other dietary supplements containing vitamin C in women from the same cohort.
Large-scale observational studies by Muntwyler et al. [3] and Watkins et al. [4], reported no effect on CVD or CHD mortality with multivitamin use. However, the multivariate adjusted risk for multivitamin users who reported a history of ischemic heart disease in the Watkins et al. study was significantly lower than in non-users. In addition, multivitamin use combined with antioxidant supplements (carotenoids and/or vitamins C or E) reduced ischemic heart disease and stroke mortality by 15%. In their review of the available evidence regarding the effectiveness of vitamin supplementation in preventing CVD, Morris and Carson [5] attributed the discrepancies in these results to unreported differences in the multivitamin combinations used.
Results from the Stockholm Heart Epidemiology Program (SHEEP) study [6]indicate that the use of dietary supplements may aid in the primary prevention of myocardial infarction (MI).
The most commonly reported dietary supplement among users in this study (80%) was a multivitamin preparation formulated at 100% DV. In a prospective cohort study of 51,529 male health professionals enrolled in the Physicians’ Health study, Merchant et al. observed an inverse association between folate intake from supplements and peripheral artery disease (PAD) risk. The primary source of supplemental folate in this study was a multivitamin supplement.
Multivitamin use has also been associated with low homocysteine concentrations in several observational studies [8-10], and lower levels of interleukin (IL) -6, a marker of the inflammatory process associated with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ACVD) and its clinical sequelae [11].
The full text of the articles can be found at: http://www.tufts.edu/med/ebcam/nutrition/multi-cardio.html