VITAMIN PILLS COULD RAISE RISK OF EARLY DEATH

The next time you pop a vitamin pill in the hope of improving your health,just give a second thaught as a new study has debunked anti-oxidants ability to prolong life.Worse,it claims that some supplements could increase the risk of a premature death.Researchers at the Copenhagen University have carried out the study,which is actually a review of 67 researchers on 230,000 healthy people,and found "no convincing evidence"that anti-oxidants helped them to prolong life expectancy; but some indeed "increased mortality".In fact,the review found that vitamin A supplements raised the risk of death in healthy people by 16 per cent,while beta-carotene pills by seven per cent and vitamin E by nearly four per cent.Although the study showed no significant detrimental effect caused by vitamin C,it also found no evidence that it helped ward off disease."We could find no evidence to support taking anti-oxidants supplements to reduce the risk of dying earlier inhealthy people or patients with various diseases."If anything,people in trial groups given the anti0oxidants beta-carotene,vitamin A and vitamin E showed increased rates of mortality,"said Goran Bjelakovic,who led the review.