Vitamin Supplements: Any Role for Heart Disease or Cancer?

This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Hello. This is Dr JoAnn Manson, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

I'd like to talk with you about a recent draft statement from the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) on vitamins, minerals, and multivitamin supplements and prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Is there a role for these micronutrient supplements?

The task force provides clear guidance that based on available research, the evidence is insufficient to recommend any of these vitamins or minerals for prevention of cardiovascular disease or cancer. But they go further. They actually have a D-recommendation against the use of high-dose beta carotene or vitamin E for the prevention of cardiovascular disease or cancer.

With high-dose beta carotene, there was an increased risk for lung cancer in smokers and some adverse signals for cardiovascular disease. With high-dose vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) in the Physicians' Health Study II, there was an increased risk for hemorrhagic stroke, and the SELECT trial suggested an increased risk for prostate cancer.

It's unclear why the task force updated the statement for multivitamins, given that the last statement, in 2014, was very similar to the current statement, and there hasn't been an update on the evidence for multivitamins and cardiovascular disease or cancer.