Today In Health Store Hooey

As I've said here before, almost every item for sale in so-called health food stores is complete hooey that at best merely gives you rather expensive urine. And according to a massive study just published, even taking multivitamins has no apparent benefit to your lifespan.

Women taking multivitamins live no longer than those who don't take the pills, and might actually die sooner, a huge new study has found. The study involved about 39,000 women who were between the ages of 55 and 69 when the study began and were tracked for 19 years. During that time, about 40 per cent of them died. When the researchers looked at who took vitamins, those who chose multivitamins had a slightly higher risk of death than those who took no supplements at all. The same was found for women who regularly took iron, vitamin B6, folic acid, magnesium, zinc and copper.

The study's authors add that "the growing body of research that has emerged in recent years that suggests that vitamins might not help to prevent disease, and perhaps, might actually increase the risk of death." It's all about your actual food, folks.