Vitamin supplements may cause early death

Vitamin supplements taken by millions of people do not increase life expectancy and may raise the risk of a premature death, according to a review of 67 studies with more than 230,000 subjects.

The review, by the Cochrane Collaboration which regularly pools data from trials to evaluate drugs and treatments, found supplements vitamin A, vitamin E and beta-carotene are detrimental to health.

In 47 trials with 180,938 people and a low risk of bias, the "antioxidant supplements significantly increased mortality", the authors wrote. When the antioxidants were assessed separately and low risk of bias trials were included and selenium excluded, vitamin A was linked to a 16 percent increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7 percent increased risk and vitamin E to a 4 percent increased risk.