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American Morning

New Study Says Vitamin a Day Helps Keeps Infection Away

Aired March 04, 2003 - 08:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We are paging Dr. Gupta this morning about a new study that says a vitamin a day helps keeps infection away. Sanjay joins us now from the CNN Center with details. And yet, there are other doctors out there who suggest it just makes very expensive urine.
You've heard that before.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we definitely do -- haven't heard it quite like that. But we do get rid of a lot of the excess vitamins that we do take in our multivitamin pills. And we spend about $1.7 billion to $2 billion a year on this, Paula, so they are expensive at well. Right on both counts, Paula.

Sort of an interesting study now. They actually decided to find out just how effective are these vitamins, looking at certain things that we spend so much money on. So they did a study looking at 130 people, and these 130 people all age 45 and older, and actually took them and gave half of them a placebo, or a sugar pill essentially, and half of them a multivitamin, looking specifically to try and figure out, are we cutting down on infects by giving these multivitamins? Are we giving them enough micronutrients to fight off these infections?

And what they found was sort of very interesting, Paula. Take a look at some of these results here. All comers, everybody who took the multivitamins, there was a decrease in overall infection rate, 73 to 43 percent. That's the bottom set of numbers. But in diabetics, they had a profound decrease in infections, 93 to 17 percent.

Overall, nondiabetic population, 60 to 59 percent. What this study is saying, Paula, is that while multivitamins may be very good in general for your health, if you're concerned about infections in particular and your diabetic you may be getting a pretty astounding benefit from taking these vitamins -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, doctor, I didn't understand the statistics -- you're 93 percent more likely to have infections? I didn't understand that, I'm sorry.

GUPTA: Ninety-three percent you have a 93 percent benefit if you take multivitamin and you're diabetic against getting an infection. So significant improvement, significant protective effect, by taking the multivitamin in terms of fighting off infections.

ZAHN: So is it your recommendation, far be it to you to send out prescriptions to all of us here, that we should take a daily vitamin? GUPTA: Well, you know, I think the bottom line message -- first of all, for diabetics, I think it's probably a great idea. You know, this was sort of a surprising finding. They went to find out if multivitamins do protect against infections for all people, and they sort of saw this diabetic population emerge as getting a significant benefit from the multivitamins.

For the general population, I think it's probably a pretty good idea. I wish it weren't so expensive. It is expensive to take these multivitamins, and they can make you sick to your stomach if you take them on an empty stomach.

But in general, if you can take these microvitaims and get your full of these micronutrients, things like zinc, and chromium, and folate (ph), things that we don't typically get enough of and things that do protect against other things like cancer, I think it's a good idea. That's my recommendation.

ZAHN: And the over-the-counter ones are just fine, because there are some even fancier ones, are they not, you can get by prescription?

GUPTA: That's right, and the ones that they looked at here were actually supplements and vitamins that you find over the counter.

ZAHN: Very good. Thank you, Dr. Gupta.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com



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Aired March 4, 2003 - 08:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We are paging Dr. Gupta this morning about a new study that says a vitamin a day helps keeps infection away. Sanjay joins us now from the CNN Center with details. And yet, there are other doctors out there who suggest it just makes very expensive urine.
You've heard that before.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we definitely do -- haven't heard it quite like that. But we do get rid of a lot of the excess vitamins that we do take in our multivitamin pills. And we spend about $1.7 billion to $2 billion a year on this, Paula, so they are expensive at well. Right on both counts, Paula.

Sort of an interesting study now. They actually decided to find out just how effective are these vitamins, looking at certain things that we spend so much money on. So they did a study looking at 130 people, and these 130 people all age 45 and older, and actually took them and gave half of them a placebo, or a sugar pill essentially, and half of them a multivitamin, looking specifically to try and figure out, are we cutting down on infects by giving these multivitamins? Are we giving them enough micronutrients to fight off these infections?

And what they found was sort of very interesting, Paula. Take a look at some of these results here. All comers, everybody who took the multivitamins, there was a decrease in overall infection rate, 73 to 43 percent. That's the bottom set of numbers. But in diabetics, they had a profound decrease in infections, 93 to 17 percent.

Overall, nondiabetic population, 60 to 59 percent. What this study is saying, Paula, is that while multivitamins may be very good in general for your health, if you're concerned about infections in particular and your diabetic you may be getting a pretty astounding benefit from taking these vitamins -- Paula.

ZAHN: So, doctor, I didn't understand the statistics -- you're 93 percent more likely to have infections? I didn't understand that, I'm sorry.

GUPTA: Ninety-three percent you have a 93 percent benefit if you take multivitamin and you're diabetic against getting an infection. So significant improvement, significant protective effect, by taking the multivitamin in terms of fighting off infections.

ZAHN: So is it your recommendation, far be it to you to send out prescriptions to all of us here, that we should take a daily vitamin? GUPTA: Well, you know, I think the bottom line message -- first of all, for diabetics, I think it's probably a great idea. You know, this was sort of a surprising finding. They went to find out if multivitamins do protect against infections for all people, and they sort of saw this diabetic population emerge as getting a significant benefit from the multivitamins.

For the general population, I think it's probably a pretty good idea. I wish it weren't so expensive. It is expensive to take these multivitamins, and they can make you sick to your stomach if you take them on an empty stomach.

But in general, if you can take these microvitaims and get your full of these micronutrients, things like zinc, and chromium, and folate (ph), things that we don't typically get enough of and things that do protect against other things like cancer, I think it's a good idea. That's my recommendation.

ZAHN: And the over-the-counter ones are just fine, because there are some even fancier ones, are they not, you can get by prescription?

GUPTA: That's right, and the ones that they looked at here were actually supplements and vitamins that you find over the counter.

ZAHN: Very good. Thank you, Dr. Gupta.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com



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