"Everyone should take" a multivitamin, omega-3, and vitamin D is too broad a promise: large randomized trials don't show a net benefit in adults who are already well-fed. These three make the most sense when an actual intake or measured level is genuinely low — not as a universal routine.

noli's read

Source: Dr. Daniel Amen, psychiatrist and founder of BrainMD, whose own omega-3 product he recommends in the post (a conflict of interest worth noting). Evidence type: large randomized trials (Physicians' Health Study II, COSMOS, VITAL) and a cohort of over 390,000 adults (JAMA Network Open, 2024) followed for more than 20 years. These converge on the same picture: daily multivitamin use isn't associated with a mortality benefit in broadly healthy adults, with one cohort even showing slightly higher mortality among users (likely confounded). Omega-3 has solid evidence in high cardiovascular-risk patients or with elevated triglycerides, but a weak-to-null effect for general prevention (VITAL trial). Vitamin D effectively corrects a genuinely low measured level but showed no significant mortality or cardiovascular benefit in adults who weren't already low. The trio isn't wrong in itself, but framing it as a universal routine rather than a response to a measured gap goes beyond what these trials show.

the sources

1. 1NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026
2. 2Manson JE et al. 2019
3. 3NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026
4. 4Bhatt DL et al. 2019
5. 5NIH Office of Dietary Supplements 2026