Supplement users often get ample minerals in diet

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Vitamins are often taken by the people who need them least, a new study

suggests.

The study showed that people who take mineral supplements also to get more

nutrients from their food than those who don't take supplements.

Indeed, in some cases, supplement users may be getting too much of a good

thing by overloading on minerals, such as iron, that can cause potentially

serious health problems, researchers said.

Regan , a nutrition researcher at the National Institutes of Health,

and her colleagues used dietary surveys to assess mineral intake among 8,860

men and women who participated in a major government health survey between

2003 and 2006.

Men and women who reported using dietary supplements containing eight

minerals (calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, phosphorus, copper, potassium and

selenium) were much less likely to be getting inadequate amounts of those

minerals from the foods they ate compared to people who said they didn't

take supplements.

The link was strongest for women, who are more likely than men to take

supplements.

Supplement users, in turn, tend to eat better and live healthier lifestyles

than nonusers, noted in an email to Reuters Health.

The NIH team also found that calcium intake often fell below recommended

levels, even among professed supplement users, the researchers reported

online September 28 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Roughly 25% of supplement users, and 71% of nonusers, did not receive the

recommended daily amount of calcium (800 to 1,000 mg for men over age 51 and

1,000 to 1,200 mg for women of the same age).

Older people were much more likely to fall short of their daily calcium

requirements -- and also to exceed them. Nearly 16% of women between the

ages of 51 and 70 reported daily calcium intakes that exceeded the

recommended upper limit.

Supplement users also were more likely to boost their intake of magnesium

and zinc above recommended upper limits.

Cheryl Rock, a nutrition researcher at the University of California, San

Diego, said the results are not surprising in light of previous research,

including her own, into the dietary habits of supplement users. " We always

would hope that the people who are taking dietary supplements are the ones

who need it the most, but it doesn't seem to be true, " Rock said.

When it comes to overconsumption, Rock added, " We have been telling people

clinically for years that the daily value cut point is not your minimum

requirement. Having a dietary assessment is definitely a good idea " to

determine where one's nutrient intake might be inadequate, if at all, she

said.

The National Institutes of Health provides information on nutritional

supplements here: http://1.usa.gov/pCsLJt.

Source: http://bit.ly/nAkGAU

Am J Clin Nutr <http://www.ajcn.org/> 2011.

--

Ortiz, MS, RD

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