Multivitamin Protects Men’s Vision

Causing a clouding of the eye lens, cataracts are a common cause of blurred vision with aging.  William G. Cristen, from Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts, USA), and colleagues analyzed data collected on 14,641 male physicians, ages 50 years and older, enrolled in the Physician’s Health Study II.  Half of the study subjects took a daily multivitamin; the other half received placebo.  Over an average of 11.2 years of treatment and follow-up, 872 cases of cataract developed in the multivitamin group, whereas 945 cases were found in the placebo group. Equating to a 9% decrease in cataract risk among those men taking the multivitamin, the study authors submit that: “these randomized trial data from a large cohort of middle-aged and older US male physicians indicate that long-term daily multivitamin use modestly and significantly decreased the risk of cataract.”