Vitamin supplements offer no protection against strokes and heart attacks

Vitamins and Co: Dietary supplements useless against heart attack and stroke

Many Germans regularly take supplements. However, experts point out again and again that such preparations bring health benefits only in rare cases. For diseases such as heart attack or stroke, they are useless. This has again been shown in a study.

No protection against heart disease

The market with dietary supplements is booming: More than 160 million packs are sold each year. According to health experts, such preparations are only recommended for a few people. Some even assume health risks. And the multivitamin preparations and minerals also do not protect against serious illnesses, such as the heart, as was once again shown in a study.

A new study has shown that supplements do not lower the risk of stroke and heart attack. Experts do not recommend the money in such preparations, but in a healthy diet. (Image: pat_hastings / fotolia.com)

Put money better in healthy eating

As the German Neurological Society (DGN) reports in a communication, dietary supplements such as vitamins and minerals do not lower the risk of dying from a cerebral infarction or heart disease.

This is the result of a recent overview study with over two million participants.

Experts of the DGN and the German Stroke Society (DSG) therefore advise consumers to invest their money in a sports club and to pay attention to a healthy diet.

Every fourth German takes supplements

According to the report, every fourth German consumer consumes supplements such as vitamins A, C, D and E, calcium, magnesium or iron.

According to the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, trade with such funds in 2015 was around 1.1 billion euros. That this money is badly invested, now confirms a meta-analysis of the use of the preparations for stroke and heart attack.

US physicians around the cardiologist dr. Joonseok Kim, junior professor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, has considered a total of 3,249 studies from the years 1970 to 2016 for the meta-analysis.

To clarify how taking supplements affects the risk of stroke and heart disease, the researchers analyzed 18 particularly high-quality studies in which more than two million people had participated.

No benefit for the population

"The result is sobering and says that there is no benefit for the whole population of such a measure," said Professor Dr. Peter Berlit, DGN Secretary General and former head physician of the Department of Neurology at the Alfried Krupp Hospital in Essen.

When summarizing mortality for all cardiovascular diseases, the relative risk (RR) for taking supplements was exactly 1.00.

This means that it did not matter if the participants took an extra dose of vitamins, minerals or trace elements or not.

The researchers came to the same conclusion - in the context of statistical fluctuations - in the separate consideration of cardiac mortality (RR 1.02), death from stroke (RR 0.95) and the frequency of strokes (RR 0.98).

Only the risk for heart disease seemed to be speaking with a RR of 0.88 for supplements.

But even here there is no connection: If one uses only the higher-grade, so-called randomized and controlled studies for the calculation, there is a relative risk of 0.97.

Mortality is increased

"To this unsatisfactory result comes the alarming result of a systematic meta-analysis of 78 randomized trials in 2012 by the Cochrane Collaboration, according to which dietary supplementation with antioxidants not only does not help, but even increases mortality!" Said Professor Berlit.

The scientists in the current study had made the greatest effort to identify subgroups that could possibly benefit from food supplements.

However, the result was always negative, no matter how long the preparations were taken, how old the study participants were, whether male or female, smoker or non-smoker, athletic or not.

There are better investments in health

"Multi-vitamin tablets are used to make billions in sales every year, but the meta-analysis shows clearly that these pills neither prevent strokes nor reduce the mortality from cardiovascular disease," said DSG's first chairman, Professor Dr. med. Armin Grau, together:

"Only pills and manufacturers benefit from these pills. However, it is clearly proven that lettuce, fruits and vegetables counteract vascular disease. Salads, fruits and vegetables contain vitamins in their natural environment. Five servings a day are considered optimal. "

Other effective measures that even save the wallet are the avoidance of smoking and larger amounts of alcohol as well as regular physical activity.

"If you want to spend money, then it's much more worthwhile to invest in a sports club or gym than in vitamins and minerals," advises Professor Berlit. (Ad)