Older adults may experience a mild improvement in memory by taking a multivitamin every day for three years, according to a recent study. The study involved 3,560 adults above the age of 60 who were given a computer program to learn 20 words. Participants had three seconds to study each word before the next appeared, and then had to type all the words they could remember. At the end of the first year, the study found that people who continued to take multivitamins were able to remember nearly an extra word on average compared to those who were given a placebo. Though the effect was small, it was statistically significant and also remained over the duration of the study. Interestingly, the improvement in memory was stronger for people with a history of cardiovascular disease.
The findings mirror a prior study from 2022 that found an improvement in memory, overall cognition, and attention for people taking a multivitamin, especially those with a history of cardiovascular disease. This replication of results adds further confidence to the findings and suggests that multivitamins could be beneficial for cognitive health, although it is worth noting that the difference in memory was still relatively small.
Some experts caution against relying too much on multivitamins for cognitive function. Jeffrey Linder, chief of general internal medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, notes that taking a multivitamin could potentially distract people from other activities that are more beneficial for cognitive function, such as exercise, a healthy diet, and good sleep. Additionally, Alzheimer’s disease researcher Dr. Richard Isaacson, who was not involved in the study, emphasizes that there is no one magic pill to prevent cognitive decline and recommends a personalized approach to addressing individual deficiencies and health concerns.
The study is actually an additional analysis of a larger study called the Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), which involved over 21,000 adults. While the COSMOS study on daily multivitamin use found no benefit in preventing cancer, it did find a 15% reduction in cardiac events and a 27% reduction in deaths from the consumption of a dietary flavanol cocoa extract supplement. While additional research is needed to test individual components of multivitamins and determine if the improvement lasts over time, the study emphasizes the importance of a healthy lifestyle for maintaining cognitive health.