Multiple choice
I was watching the evening news with my husband when I saw it, and my very first thought was "Here we go again." You probably saw them too: The headlines claiming that multivitamins don't offer women any protection against cancer or heart disease. And when you START reading the reports, they do make multivitamins look…if not bad, then at least useless. But by the time you get to the end, well -- it's a different story entirely… All of the articles were reporting on information drawn from the Women's Health Initiative Study. The researchers examined the records of 161,808 postmenopausal women and found that 41.5 percent of them reported taking multivitamins. They looked at eight years of follow-up data and concluded that "multivitamin supplementns had little or no influence on the risk of cardiovascular disease, and breast, colorectal, endometrial, kidney, bladder, stomach ovary, or lung cancer." But it was the NEXT part of the conclusion that was even more important: According to one of the study's co-authors, "If you fall into the category of women described here, and you do in fact have an adequate diet, there really is no reason to take a multivitamin." The fact is, it's nearly IMPOSSIBLE to have the sort of "adequate diet" that would eliminate the need for additional vitamin, mineral, and other nutrient supplements. Even if your diet is 100 percent organic, the very soil the foods are grown in has, in most cases, been depleted of the nutrients essential to your well-being. And, let's be honest: Not many of DO follow a completely organic diet. The more "regular" foods you're eating, the worse the situation is in terms of just how many of the essential nutrients you're really getting from what you eat. Dr. Wright has always asserted that taking a good quality multivitamin-mineral supplement every day is one of the most basic things you can do to build a foundation of good health. No, by itself, it may not be the answer to deadly threats like heart disease and cancer. But when it's combined with other natural therapies, it bolsters your defenses and gives those treatments added strength. And THAT gives you a leg up against just about ANY health threat that comes your way. Source:
"Multivitamins fail to protect women from cancers and heart disease: Study," NutraIngredients.com (www.nutraingredients.com), 2/10/09 | 
