> Multi vitamins are generally a complete waste of money. I think we should be more careful about saying this. I've heard both professors and doctors say this

> Multi vitamins are generally a complete waste of money. I think we should be more careful about saying this. I've heard both professors and doctors say this, and then I've personally read the (reputable, mainstream) research papers showing that double digit percentages of people have various vitamin deficiencies. I'll just Google real quick to see if I can find some examples of common vitamin deficiencies, but these are obviously just web articles, not research papers... https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfessional/ https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Magnesium-HealthProfession... "Dietary surveys of people in the United States consistently show that many people consume less than recommended amounts of magnesium" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10357726/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10357726/ This one recommends 120mg of vitamin C, but I've seen another that recommends 200mg, and I suspect a lot of software engineers are not eating enough fruit on a daily basis to meet the recommended level. Also, what's the harm in taking a multivitamin? At a cost of under $1/day, if you don't need the vitamins, it's a small cost (< 1% of Bay Area rent), and if you do need them it may have an impact on your health. I agree that a multivitamin doesn't usually include enough magnesium or vitamin D, but that's an argument for adding additional supplements, not to stop taking multivitamins.