“Vitamins and minerals work in wild and wondrous ways, some of which we understand, many of which we’re still trying to understand,” says Howard D. Sesso, associate director of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and medical editor of the Making Sense of Vitamins and Minerals report from Harvard Medical School. “And there’s tremendous variation in how we all consume, digest, absorb and utilize the nutrients in a particular food we’re eating.”