Perhaps packing a plethora of nutrients into one pill may not be the best idea.

A new study published this week reports postmenopausal women who use multivitamins have the same risk of dying from "most common cancers, cardiovascular disease or of any cause as women who do not take multivitamin supplements."

The finding was published in the February 9th issue of Archives of Internal Medicine and may be described as disheartening news for the multitude of women under the impression they were improving their health by popping one pill each day.

A total of 41.5 percent of the participants in the study used multivitamins and after approximately eight years of study, the findings indicated there was no significant evidence that multivitamin use prevented such conditions as breast and ovarian cancer.

"Nutritional efforts should remain a principal focus of chronic disease prevention, but without definitive results from a randomized controlled trial, multivitamin supplements will not likely play a major role in such prevention efforts," the researchers wrote in the study.

Past research has suggested taking specific nutrients, such as vitamin D, may help people improve or maintain their health.