New study says multivitamins just don't cut it when it comes to preventing heart disease

In the landmark Physician’s Health Study II, authors concluded that taking a multivitamin for over a decade did nothing to prevent cardiovascular events such as myocardial infarction or stroke. The study monitored 14,641 male doctors for over eleven years who took either a daily multivitamin or placebo and no differences in cardiovascular events or mortality was found between the two groups. Since evidence linking deficiencies to heart disease is strong (see vitamin D study below on 45,000 patients), some conclude that a multivitamin is simply not effective in correcting deficiencies and that targeted supplementation for the individual is a better approach.

(Journal of the American Medical Association, November 2012)
(American Journal of Cardiology, October 2010)
Link to Abstract: Multivitamins
Link to Abstract: Vitamin D