According to the findings of the Iowa Women's Health Study, women who take multivitamins are apparently at a higher risk of death as compared to their counterparts who do not take such dietary supplements.
The study - published in the Archives of Internal Medicine - chiefly underscores that multivitamins may do more harm than good to the health of women, especially those in the above-50 age-group.
It was on the basis of an analysis of a mid-1980s study of over 38,000 women, aged more than 55 years, that the researchers came to the conclusion that most supplements - like vitamin B6, folic acid, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron and multivitamins - fail to have any positive effect on women's health, with the vitamins hardly doing anything to bring down their risk of death.
While highlighting the fact that multivitamins apparently have an adverse effect on the health of women, the study did not reflect on the reason for which the women participants had started taking multivitamins - whether it was to fight diseases or to maintain health.
About the intake of dietary supplements by women and their effects, owners of vitamin shops in Iowa said that whatever vitamins people decide to take is essentially a matter of their personal preference.
However, noting that supplements are apparently not required by most people, vitamin experts said that the best way one can ensure the requisite intake of all vitamins is to eat a well-balanced diet.