In yet another study where researchers hoped to find a magic pill to cure what ails you, they found out that — guess what? — vitamin supplements alone aren’t helpful in preventing cancers, heart disease and strokes, while eating your veggies and fruit does in fact lower the likelihood of these same killer diseases.

Here’s a link for more info:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/study-finds-no-benefit-from-daily-multivitamin/

This doesn’t surprise me in the slightest, but then every study I’ve read about supplements of any kind show far less effectiveness/healthfulness than eating whole foods (and when I say “whole foods,” I mean plant-based whole foods). It doesn’t sound as if the folks being tested for this study ate well in addition to taking supplements, so the term “supplement” is used loosely. (After all, if all a multi is designed to do is supplement your already good diet, it might help, but if it’s really a replacement for eating well, not just “supplemental” nutrition, no way could it achieve what eating real healthful foods can. Pills have no fiber, etc.!)

The takeaway from this study is:

Eat your fruits and veggies (and beans and nuts/seeds!). Don’t rely on a multivitamin to balance your diet for you. A pill is never a substitute for the real thing! And besides, most multivitamins contain vitamin A anyhow, which is known to increase risk for many cancers, so how could researchers think that taking a multi would prevent cancer? The only multi I recommend, incidentally — which I do take regularly, but only as insurance on top of a very well-balanced diet — is Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s Gentle Care vitamins. They’re free of vitamin A and have a different balance from most multis on the market.