Vitamin / mineral supplementation
Multivitamins, B-complex, D pills. Purchasable health input.
Use is a marker of health-seeking and of disposable income. Causal effects on economic outcomes collapse after SES controls, except where a clinical deficiency is being corrected (B12, iron, 25(OH)D in the truly deficient).
Also called multivitamin, micronutrient pills.
Connected relationships
Observational · High confidence
Vitamin / mineral supplementation→Employment status
A rise in Vitamin / mineral supplementation does not identify a change in Employment status.
People who buy vitamins look more employed because they already differ in ways that keep jobs, not because the pill caused the job. Shrank (2011) named that healthy-user bias. Simpson (2006) measured the same selection as death, not employment: in 21 studies and 46,847 people, good adherence, including to placebo, had an odds ratio of 0.56 for mortality.
Randomized trial · Contested
Vitamin / mineral supplementation→Cognitive performance
A rise in Vitamin / mineral supplementation does not identify a change in Cognitive performance.
Chen 2021 found that six months of folic acid plus vitamin B12 moved MoCA total by about one point versus placebo in 120 people with Alzheimer's in Tianjin, while a 2003 Cochrane review of B12 in dementia with low serum B12 found no cognitive effect.
Observational · High confidence
Disposable income→Vitamin / mineral supplementation
Higher Disposable income increases Vitamin / mineral supplementation.
Money buys bottles. Reverse causation is the whole trick of the wellness-to-wealth genre.
Cases
Sources
- W. H. Shrank et al. (2011). Healthy user and related biases in observational studies of preventive interventions: a primer for physicians
- SH Simpson et al. (2006). A meta-analysis of the association between adherence to drug therapy and mortality.
- H Chen et al. (2021). Effects of Folic Acid and Vitamin B12 Supplementation on Cognitive Impairment and Inflammation in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease: A Randomized, Single-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Trial.
- R Malouf et al. (2003). Vitamin B12 for cognition.
- Z Wang et al. (2022). B vitamins and prevention of cognitive decline and incident dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.