You’re late, with no time to chop fruit or rinse lettuce before driving to work. In your race out the door, you pitstop at the pantry for a protein bar or toaster pastry. Not exactly textbook nutrition, but it’s okay, you remind yourself. Earlier, you took a multivitamin.
That multivitamin may seem like armor against a hasty, nutrient-sparse breakfast. About one-third of adults take them, and many doctors recommend them for some children and other specific groups.
But several recent studies have found that multivitamins don’t actually improve health outcomes—with a few exceptions—and pills with too much “nutrition” might even backfire. Here’s what to know about multivitamins: when they’ll likely help, harm, or do absolutely nothing.
Multivitamins vs. nutrition
A daily multivitamin probably won’t be your savior. The bedrocks of healthy behavior are your biggest assets for staying disease-free. “Diet, exercise, and other healthy lifestyle habits matter the most,” says Howard Sesso, associate professor of epidemiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who has studied people’s health outcomes when they take multivitamins.
So-called “broad-based” multivitamins combine a wide range of micronutrients, with typically around 13 essential vitamins like A, C, and D, and up to 15 minerals like calcium, magnesium, and zinc. Other multivitamins focus on fewer nutrients for specific needs like bone or skin health.
