Seeking protection from heart disease? Look to your humble multivitamin. Whenstudying vitamin E-users. Howard Hodis, M.D., director of the University of Southern California Atherosclerosis Research Unit, serendipitously found that subjects taking vitamins had lower blood levels of an amino acid called homocysteine than those who didn't. Scientists now believe that high levels of the long-ignored amino acid are just as likely to cause the dangerous buildup of fat in the arteries as cholesterol, the usual suspect. Hodis warns that this finding is merely preliminary; still, it's another good reason to take your one-a-day.