Vitamin and Mineral Supplements in the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer: An Updated Systematic Evidence Review for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force

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 "We developed an analytic framework (Appendix Figure 1 of the Supplement) with 4 key questions that we adapted from a 2006 review by Huang and colleagues (6). Our full report describes our methods in detail (7). We specifically sought studies of the following vitamins and minerals: vitamins A, B₁, B₂, B₆, B₁₂, C, D, and E; calcium; iron; zinc; magnesium; niacin; folic acid; β-carotene; and selenium. We included studies that evaluated single, paired, and combinations of three or more vitamins and minerals; we use the term “multivitamin” to refer to these combinations of vitamins and minerals."



.....In conclusion, we found no evidence of an effect of nutritional doses on CVD, cancer, or mortality in healthy individuals without known nutritional deficiencies for most supplements we examined. In most cases there are insufficient data to draw any conclusion, although for vitamin E and β-carotene a lack of benefit is consistent across several trials. We identified 2 multivitamin trials that both found lower overall cancer incidence in men (19, 21). Both these trials were both methodologically sound, but the lack of an effect for women (albeit in 1 trial), the borderline significance in men in both trials, and the lack of any effect on CVD in either study makes it difficult to conclude that multivitamin supplementation is beneficial."