If you're interested in this topic, I recommend reading Michael Pollan's books - The Omnivore's Dilemma or (the shorter) In Defence of Food. He explains more why reductionism in nutrition makes absolutely no sense - both scientifically and from a health point of view.
The "anti-oxidants prevent cancer" model may not be working out--if only because cancer may be an emergent property of a number of different processes--but fish oil (omega-3 fatty acids) is absolutely worth taking to prevent heart disease. See for example http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4632
I began taking a daily multivitamin and fish oil (sometimes flax seed) because I felt that my diet wasn't healthy during my college years. Placebo effect or not, I felt better and in general my life improved. Even if it isn't a direct effect of the contents of the multivitamin, the price is so insignificant and the benefit so great that it easily passes cost/benefit analysis.
There was a study that was published in Oct. 2007 by researchers from the University of California (Berkeley). They did not find any negative effects from heavy vitamin and supplement users. In fact, all the tests they ran showed they were far healthier than the non-vitamin users.
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[ 7.4 ms ] story [ 25.7 ms ] threadYou can view and download the full report at: http://www.landmarkstudy.com/
It seems to contradict a lot of the stuff from the NY Times article.