The Great Multivitamin Debate

The effects of the pills, if any, are modest and may require taking them for decades. But that's good enough for me

For years, doctors advised their patients that the only thing taking multivitamins does is give them expensive urine. After all, true vitamin deficiencies, such as scurvy and pellagra, are practically unheard of in industrialized countries. Now it seems those doctors may have been wrong. The results of a growing number of studies suggest that even a modest vitamin shortfall can be harmful to your health. Although proof of the benefits of multivitamins is still far from certain, the few dollars you spend on them is probably a good investment.

Or at least that's the argument put forward in last week's New...

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