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Nov. 12, 2018 – A widely anticipated study has neither vitamin D nor fish oil supplements prevent cancer or serious heart-related problems in healthy older people, according to research presented Saturday at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions. Researchers defined serious heart problems as the combined rate of heart attacks, stroke and heart-related deaths.
The Clinical Director of the Clinical Investigator at the Maine Medical Clinic, with about 26,000 people – said Dr. Clifford Rosen, a senior scientist at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute who was not involved in the research.
Doctors have been keenly interested in learning the supplements' true value, given their tremendous popularity with patients. A 2017 study found that 26 percent of Americans age 60 and older take vitamin D supplements, while 22 percent take pills containing omega-3 fatty acids, a key ingredient in fish oil.
D, said Rosen, who co-wrote an accompanying editorial, said that there is no reason for a blood tests for vitamin routine. (Both were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.) That's because the study found that patients' vitamin D levels made no difference in their risk of cancer or serious heart issues, Rosen said. Even people who have started the study with clear vitamin D deficiency, which provided 2,000 international units a day. This amount is equal to one or two of the vitamin D pills typically sold in stores.
A recent Kaiser Health News has reported that vitamin D testing has become a huge business for commercial labs – and an enormous expense for taxpayers. Doctors ordered more than 10 million vitamin D tests for Medicare patients in 2016 – an increase of 547 percent since 2007 – at a cost of $ 365 million.
"It's time to stop it," said Rosen of vitamin D testing. "There's no justification."
Dr. JoAnn Manson, the study's lead author, agrees that her results do not support screening healthy people for vitamin D deficiency.
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But she does not see her study as entirely negative.
Manson notes that her team found no serious side effects from taking either fish oil or vitamin D supplements.
"If you're already taking fish oil or vitamin D, our results would not provide a clear reason to stop," Manson said.
Manson notes that a deeper look into the data suggested possible benefits.
When researchers singled out heart attacks, 28% of men said that 28% of people were suffering from heart attacks. As for vitamin D, it appeared to reduce cancer deaths – although not cancer diagnoses – by 25 percent.
But slicing the data into smaller segments – with fewer patients in each group – can produce unreliable results, said Dr. Barnett Kramer, director of the cancer prevention division at the National Cancer Institute. The links between fish oil and heart attacks – and vitamin D and cancer death – could be due to chance, Kramer said.
Experts agree that vitamin D is important for bone health. Researchers did not report on its effects in these papers, however. Instead, they looked at areas where vitamins of health and well-being, such as cancer and heart disease. Although preliminary studies have suggested vitamin D can prevent heart disease and cancer, more rigorous studies have disputed those findings.
Manson et al, et al., Et al., Et al., Et al.
Consumers who want to reduce their risk of cancer and heart disease.
"People should continue to focus on known factors to reduce cancer and heart disease: Eat right, exercise, do not smoke, high blood pressure control, take a statin if you're high risk," said Dr. Alex Krist, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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