By Sean Zucker –
Urging someone to take a daily multivitamin is not exactly groundbreaking advice. However, the benefits may be even more far-reaching than previously known. New findings suggest that maintaining this easy daily habit could help prevent cognitive decline caused by aging.
A team of researchers at Mass General Brigham, a not-for-profit integrated health care system and medical research center, examined the effect of taking daily multivitamin supplements for cognitive decline in older adults. The study, which was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, recruited 573 participants who were aged 60 or older and were at high risk for cognitive decline. Each individual was then randomly assigned to either ingest a multivitamin or a placebo pill every day. Following the two-year testing period, those in the multivitamin group were shown to experience much stronger cognitive functions.
Specifically, the results showed that the participants who took the supplement had significantly less decline in their global cognition, episodic memory and processing speed over the 24-month trial. Additionally, the multivitamin appeared to be more effective in women than in men.
The study’s authors noted their work was inspired by recent data from the Alzheimer’s Association, which estimates that by 2060, the number of people in the U.S. aged 65 and older with Alzheimer’s dementia will reach close to 14 million. The impact of the disease could be lessened by medical developments to prevent, slow or cure the condition.
“Cognitive decline is among the top health concerns for most older adults and a daily supplement of multivitamins has the potential as an appealing and accessible approach to slow cognitive aging,” said Chirag Vyas, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system and coauthor author of the study. “These findings will garner attention among many older adults who are, understandably, very interested in ways to preserve brain health as they provide evidence for the role of a daily multivitamin in supporting better cognitive aging.”
The study is part of a larger research initiative known as the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) at Mass General Brigham. This latest work is the third scientific installment under COSMOS to discover that people who took a daily multivitamin for up to three years slowed cognitive brain aging by at least two years.
“The finding that a daily multivitamin improved memory and slowed cognitive aging in three separate placebo-controlled studies in COSMOS is exciting and further supports the promise of multivitamins as a safe, accessible and affordable approach to protecting cognitive health in older adults,” added JoAnn Manson, Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Mass General Brigham and coauthor of the study.
However, Howard Sesso, another coauthor and founding member of Mass General Brigham, expressed some caution toward the results. He explained the importance of understanding how daily multivitamins specifically protect against memory loss and cognitive decline, while also focusing on their nutritional status and other aging-related factors.
“For example, the modifying role of baseline nutritional status in protecting against cognitive decline has been shown for the COSMOS cocoa extract intervention. A typical multivitamin such as that tested in COSMOS contains many essential vitamins and minerals that could explain its potential benefits,” he explained.
It is worth noting that this research follows a 2014 study that similarly tracked the connection between mental functioning and multivitamin use. It followed the daily habits of 5,947 men for 12 years and concluded that multivitamins did not reduce the risk for cognitive decline issues such as memory loss or slowed-down thinking. Sesso was also involved in this earlier study. Nevertheless, as he confirmed, more research is needed.
