Women’s health articles
Are vitamins safe for women? A look at vitamin safety and mortality rates in older women
Should you believe the recent headlines that an Iowa study shows that vitamins aren’t good for you — or may even shorten your life? Our answer is “no” — and here’s why. It’s important for every person to understand that this wild claim is not only bad science, but is being used as a rationale to limit your access to ordinary nutritional supplements.
What do the data really show about vitamin safety? Beyond the media hype
As is often the case, when you look at the actual study and not the media reports, you find that the research being highlighted has a great many troubling flaws. Here are just a few problems we’ve noted:
- The study wasn’t originally designed to prove or disprove what the authors now claim — so not surprisingly, the conclusion they reach now requires a lot of assumptions and interpretations that ignore a great many other variables. For instance, the study did not gather data about prescription drug intake, existing health issues beyond diabetes and hypertension, or the overall nutrient status of the study subjects — all key variables when considering longevity.
- The data in the study aren’t “comparing apples to apples” given that none of the women in the study were taking the same supplements in the same manner. It’s more like a comparison of apples, oranges, grapes, and peaches.
- The use of supplements was self-reported by the women in the study at three intervals over the course of 22 years of participation. This kind of data collection over such an extended time frame has been shown to be highly inaccurate and subjective. It comes nowhere near the level of accuracy found in clinical trial data, yet the authors are making profound cause-and-effect conclusions anyway.
This is just a sampling of the many problems with this study, but they all lead to the same verdict. Ultimately, the data from this study in no way supports the conclusions made either by the authors or by the press reporting on the study. As any statistician will tell you, correlation does not equal causation. Just because you observe a relationship between two factors does not mean one factor causes the other to occur — particularly when there are so many other possible variables involved (variables that these authors ignored).
Why is bad science getting so much attention?
What’s most troubling about this study (and others like it that have received similar attention) is not the flaws in their designs. The real concern is the way bad science is being used to push a political agenda that seeks to prevent individuals from making their own healthcare choices. That agenda has raised its head time and time again, supported by the most conservative sectors of the medical profession. The apparent goal of this agenda is to reduce the ability of individuals to make independent decisions about how to manage their health. Each time, pushback by the public has put a lid on it — but only temporarily. The headlines that scream “Vitamins Kill Women!” are the public face of this campaign, but there are plenty of behind-the-scenes maneuvers. Legislation in the Senate and pending regulatory actions by the FDA, both of which would greatly restrict public access to vitamins, minerals, and herbal supplements, are currently under review. Yet many people who rely on supplements to support their health may be unaware of these sorts of political games — until it’s too late.
This study is not about public safety. It’s about channeling public healthcare decisions in a direction that is beneficial to a certain segment of the healthcare industry — never mind how it affects ordinary people trying to safeguard their health. The sole piece of genuine “news” coming from this study is that women should know that their health needs change over time and check in with their healthcare providers regularly to make sure that the supplements they’re taking are what they truly need for health maintenance.
At Women to Women, we know that women are capable of making informed decisions and will make the right choices for their health if given good information. We emphatically disagree with any model of healthcare that disempowers the patient and puts health decisions in the hands of public authorities. This study, and the ones that have come before it, represent little more than media manipulation intended to frighten policy makers into doing exactly that.