Health Effects
Provided that proper precautions are taken (such as adjusting the vitamin amounts to what is believed to be appropriate for children, pregnant women or people with certain medical conditions), multivitamin intake is generally safe, but research is still ongoing in regard to what health effects multivitamins have.
Evidence of health effects of multivitamins comes largely from prospective cohort studies which evaluate differences in health parameters between cohorts that take multivitamins versus cohorts that do not. Associations derived from such studies may not result from multivitamins themselves, but may reflect underlying characteristics of multivitamin-takers. For example, it has been suggested that multivitamin-takers may, overall, have more underlying diseases (making multivitamins appear as less beneficial in prospective cohort studies). On the other hand, it has also been suggested that multivitamin users may, overall, be more health-conscious (making multivitamins appear as more beneficial in prospective cohort studies). Randomized controlled studies have been encouraged to compensate for such confounders.
Read more about this topic: Multivitamin
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