The findings of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), an extensive study related to the health of women in the postmenopausal period, revealed that the regular intake of multivitamins is ineffective in lowering the risk of cancer, heart attack, stroke or premature death from any cause.

The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, monitored 161,800 postmenopausal US women during an eight-year period to conclude that gulping vitamin supplements is futile in the face of chronic diseases, even as billions of dollars are mindlessly shelled out on them.

Nearly 42 percent of the postmenopausal women observed took vitamins every day, and still had essentially the same rates of cancers - breast, ovarian, colorectal or lung cancer - cardiovascular diseases and death from any other cause, as women who did not take multivitamins.

Researcher Marian Neuhouser, PhD, said in a news release that the fact "multivitamins did not lower the risk of the most common cancers and also had no impact on heart disease" is a "surprise" indeed; and recommended that compared to supplements, nutrients from foods are a better health alternative.

In the opinion of Andrew Shao of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, said that all dietary supplements, multivitamins included, should be used over and above a healthy lifestyle in general. Shao said multivitamins "are not intended to be magic bullets that will assure the prevention of chronic diseases, like cancer." (Harkiran Contributed to this report)