Association between intake of health foods/supplements, background factors, and life expectancy in the general population: the Yamagata study

Background: Owing to growing health consciousness, more people consumes health foods and supplements recently. However, the background factors of people who consumes health foods/ supplements and the relationship between health foods/supplements intake and mortality in the general Japanese population remains unclear. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, we surveyed the intake of health foods/supplements among 19,144 community health checkup participants （58.1% women; mean age, 62.7 years） and examined the association between background factors and death during a 9-year follow-up period. Results: Health foods/supplements intake was observed in 4,238 subjects （22.1%; women, 24.1%;men, 19.2%）, and its prevalence increased with age in both sexes. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, aging, non-smoking, non-hypertension, and lipid-lowering medications were significantly associated with health foods/supplements intake. In Cox proportional hazards analysis adjusted for confounding factors, health foods/supplements intake was not significantly associated with mortality. Conclusions: This study reports a high prevalence of health foods/supplements intake in the general Japanese population, especially in older adults, women, non-smokers, non-hypertensives, and those taking lipid-lowering medication. Although the intake of health foods/supplements was not significantly associated with mortality, it is necessary to use health foods/supplements judiciously to avoid undesirable effects.