The debate over multivitamins tends to miss the forest for the trees, in my opinion.
One, there is no real downside to taking them other than their cost.
Two, there are definite and dramatic benefits to taking specific vitamin supplements if you're deficient. E.g. if you don't get enough vitamin C in your diet a supplement will protect you from getting scurvy. A more modern example is iron deficiency, a third of American women are iron deficient. Vitamin D supplementation is recommended in the winter, etc.
So the idea behind the multivitamin is it may help you out with stuff you don't know you need, basically, and also it may not, but you have nothing to lose by taking one.
To date I haven't come across a study which attempts to frame the issue in this light. A study about longevity doesn't really change my point of view: I take them after a night of drinking where a hangover is probably incoming and god knows precisely what I'm deficient in the next day. The medical system's only advice is don't drink and I already blew that one :)
One, there is no real downside to taking them other than their cost.
Two, there are definite and dramatic benefits to taking specific vitamin supplements if you're deficient. E.g. if you don't get enough vitamin C in your diet a supplement will protect you from getting scurvy. A more modern example is iron deficiency, a third of American women are iron deficient. Vitamin D supplementation is recommended in the winter, etc.
So the idea behind the multivitamin is it may help you out with stuff you don't know you need, basically, and also it may not, but you have nothing to lose by taking one.
To date I haven't come across a study which attempts to frame the issue in this light. A study about longevity doesn't really change my point of view: I take them after a night of drinking where a hangover is probably incoming and god knows precisely what I'm deficient in the next day. The medical system's only advice is don't drink and I already blew that one :)