Trends in vitamin, mineral and dietary supplement use in Switzerland. The CoLaus study

Background/objectives: Vitamin/mineral (VMS) and dietary supplements (DS) use is common in Switzerland, but nothing is known regarding the factors associated with their initiation, discontinuation or continuation of intake. Subjects/methods: Prospective study conducted between 2003-2006 and 2009-2012 in Lausanne, Switzerland among 4676 participants (2525 women, age range 35-75 years). VMS were defined as single or multivitamin/multimineral preparations; DS were defined as any dietary supplement. Results: VMS use was 20.6% at baseline and 20.3% at follow-up (P=0.69): 559 (12.0%) participants discontinued; 545 (11.7%) initiated and 404 (8.6%) continued VMS use. On multivariable analysis, men had a lower relative risk ratio (RRR) of discontinuing, initiation or continuing; older age and being physically active were associated with a higher RRR of initiation or continuing; lower education and higher body mass index were associated with a lower RRR of discontinuing or continuing of VMS. DS use decreased from 10.4 to 6.8% (P Conclusions: VMS use is stable in the Lausanne population, whereas DS use appears to be decreasing. Individuals can be categorized either as users or non-users depending on the study period, and consistent users are only a small fraction of prevalent users.
Author(s): P Marques-Vidal [sup.1] , P Vollenweider [sup.1] , G Waeber [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Internal Medicine, BH10-642, Internal Medicine, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland Introduction Vitamin [...]