[buddyboy]

Vitamins 'could shorten lifespan'

Researchers are now suggesting that taking certain vitamin supplements may affect people's lifespan--but not in the way you'd expect.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Researchers at Copenhagen University have suggested that antioxidant supplements like vitamins A and E, and beta-carotene, may enhance an individual's risk of early death.

The benefits of vitamin supplements have always been questionable, with hundreds of experiments on them not leading to much certainty on how they truly benefit people.

Recent theories suggest that vitamins taken along with a healthy diet may stop damage to the body's tissues by eliminating the molecules which are said to cause it. This theory is still very controversial, however.

The Copenhagen research team looked over 815+ clinical trials which tested the benefits of vitamins A, E and C (as well as beta-carotene and selenium). They next selected 68 trials whose methods seemed likely to produce an accurate picture of the benefits vitamins give, then put all the results together to make one big study. This showed no benefits or negative results from taking vitamins.

When 21 of the original 68 trials were removed, however, it was shown that Beta-carotene increased the risk of early death by 7%, vitamin E showed a 4% increase, and vitamin A showed a shocking 16% increase.

These results are still controversial and no doubt many more studies will follow. Still, this is something to think about the next time you pop a vitamin A, E or a beta-carotene.