Dietitian Josie Porter, author of How Not to Take Supplements, reviewed ten widely used supplements and delivered a skeptical assessment of multivitamins. The write-up, highlighted by Boing Boing, centers on whether these products offer meaningful benefits for most people.
A key point in the discussion is one of the largest multivitamin studies focused on memory in older adults. According to the summary, the reported improvement was extremely small: about a quarter of a word on a 20-word memory test. That detail is being used to argue that any measurable effect may be too limited to matter in everyday life.
The broader takeaway from Porter’s review is that popular supplements can sound more impressive in marketing than they do in research. By looking at ten common products, the piece frames multivitamins as an example of a supplement category where the evidence may not match public expectations.
For readers trying to judge whether multivitamins are worth taking, the article points back to results rather than hype. Based on the trial cited, the case for memory gains appears modest at best, reinforcing Porter’s conclusion that multivitamins may be far less useful than many people assume.
