Multivitamins help beat heart attacks

Many people live in constant fear of heart attack, indicated by a tight, squeezing chest pain often accompanied by breathlessness, sweating, anxiety, and nausea. Now Swedish researchers suggest multivitamins may be an important preventive measure.

A study in the August 2003 Journal of Nutrition carefully matched 1,296 people who'd had one heart attack with 1,685 people in a control group. Of those who hadn't experienced heart attacks, 57 per cent of women and 35 per cent of men took multivitamins, compared to only 42 per cent of women and 27 per cent of men in the heart-attack group.

Scientists concluded low-dose multivitamins may aid in preventing primary heart attacks. However, most natural health experts would add that multis should be just one part of a heart disease prevention program that includes regular exercise, de-stress therapies, and a high-fibre, colourful diet rich in essentially fatty acids but low in refined salt, sugar, and caffeine.

An estimated 75,000 heart attacks occur in Canada annually. In 1997, the last year statistics are available, 22,000 Canadians died from heart attacks.