A new epidemiological study conducted on participants in Australia put to the test a combination of a healthy diet and a regimen involving a specific set of supplements, to evaluate the overall effect that following this specific pattern of diet and supplementation would have on obesity and cardiovascular disease, but tracking the eating and supplementation patterns of 69,990 Australian participants ages 45 and older, of the 45 and Up Study, which had a ten-year follow-up period.
 
The Australian team, which published the study in the journal Nutrients, found that participants who met a certain set of eating patterns which aligned with long-term healthy dieting, and supplemented with fish oil and/or multivitamin and mineral (MVM) supplements, had a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease than any other group in the study.
 
“Epidemiological studies have widely indicated the importance of healthy eating in CVD prevention, but consistent results of the association between multivitamins and minerals and CVD have not been established,” the authors wrote. “We also found the benefit of fish oil, and also a long-term healthy diet combined with fish oil, to be associated with a lower risk of CVD […] Where these previous studies focused on only fish oil supplements, and other studies established the importance of a healthy diet in CVD and obesity prevention, or the benefits of single food groups and dietary patterns in relation to CVD and obesity, remarkably few studies have investigated the combined or joint effects of supplements and dietary quality.”
 
Furthermore, participants who used calcium supplements in addition to MVM supplements, fish oil, and maintained a healthy diet, had a lower incidence rate of obesity. An unhealthy diet, however, negated any mitigation to CVD risk that was present in the supplements combined with a healthy diet.
 
“Previous studies indicate that obesity often coexists with low calcium intake, suggesting that increased calcium consumption may be a potential strategy to reduce obesity,” the authors wrote. “The evidence of joint effect of diet and calcium supplementation are scarce, indicating further studies are needed.”
 
While previous epidemiological studies have substantiated the role that MVM supplements, fish oil, and calcium have in jointly impacting obesity and CVD incidence when combined with a healthy diet, this epidemiological study further substantiates the links for all three of these supplement types, the authors said. However, further studies substantiating the joint health effects of supplement combinations are needed.