Daily Multivitamins May Help Reduce Hypertension Risk — Study

 

New findings from Mass General Brigham investigators said that taking a daily multivitamin over a long period may help lower the risk of developing hypertension and may also reduce blood pressure (BP) in some older adults.

From the secondary analysis of data from the Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), researchers showed moderate but significant benefits for people with lower-quality diets and for those with normal blood pressure at the

beginning of the study. The American Journal of Hypertension published the study’s findings. 

Even so, the analysis determined that, for the overall study population, daily multivitamin use did not impact hypertension risk or blood pressure in every older adult.

COSMOS is a randomised and placebo-controlled clinical trial designed to explore how cocoa extract and multivitamin supplements influence health in older adults in the U.S.

For this analysis, the investigators focused on 8,905 participants who did not have hypertension at the start of the study and who were assigned to take either Centrum Silver or a placebo each day for a median period of 3.4 years.

The team also assessed changes in blood pressure over a two-year span in two additional groups that included 529 participants with clinic-based measurements and 994 participants who recorded their measurements at home.

Overall, the investigators found no differences in self-reported incident hypertension between the multivitamin and placebo groups. Multivitamins lowered the risk of hypertension in participants with comparatively lower diet quality, as measured by the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) and the Alternate Mediterranean Diet (aMED) scores.

In addition, participants with normal BP at baseline taking a daily multivitamin experienced small, significant reductions in BP measurements over two years.

The authors propose that further research is required to examine the effects of a daily multivitamin in younger and middle-aged adults and across different populations based on nutritional status.

Corresponding author Rikuta Hamaya, MD, PhD, MS, of the Division of Preventive Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine, in a reaction, said, “Our findings suggest that a daily multivitamin may not be a one-size-fits-all solution for controlling blood pressure but could be beneficial for important subsets of older adults.”