Whether to take a multivitamin could come down to personal preference. Based on his own research, Sesso started taking multivitamins daily after he turned 50, on top of eating healthy. “Lifestyle is the first line of defense,” he says. He always takes the multivitamin with food, since the body recognizes and uses it better that way, he says.
Others may want to carefully consider if a multivitamin is really delivering the best benefit for their situation. Logging more hours of sleep, for instance, would boost health more than any pill for the majority of people. “What variable in your life is most important to identify?” Bock says. “A multivitamin can be helpful in some circumstances, but it’s not always the answer.”