Health scare of the week

Dietary supplements don’t reduce your risk of early death, and may even be harmful in large quantities, reports NBCNews.com. Researchers from Tufts University examined data from a health survey involving more than 30,000 people ages 20 and older. After accounting for lifestyle factors, they found that people who ingested adequate amounts of magnesium, zinc, and vitamins A and K had a lower risk of death over the study period—but only when those nutrients came from food rather than supplements. Furthermore, the participants who took more than 1,000 mg of calcium supplements a day had a higher risk of death from cancer, while those who took more than 400 IU of vitamin D supplements had a higher risk of death from any cause. “It’s becoming more and more clear,” says study co-author Fang Fang Zhang, “that the regular use of dietary supplements is not beneficial in reducing the risk of mortality among the general population.”

■