Popping a daily multivitamin pill could could help prevent Alzheimer’s, new study suggests.
Researchers found that those who took a daily pill improved their memory and slowed cognitive aging by two years.
The team from Mass General Brigham crunched data from the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS).
It was a meta-analysis of 5,000 participants, including more than 500 who underwent in-person assessments over two years.
The latest study is the third based on the study combining two previous studies with the 500 in-person assessments to produce the results published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The team gathered 573 participants and had them undergo detailed, in-person cognitive assessments over a two-year period.
Some of the participants took a daily multivitamin supplement during this time, while others took a placebo pill.
They found that those taking the multivitamin had better global cognition and episodic memory than those taking the placebo.
It was also estimated that the multivitamin slowed cognitive aging by two years. No impact on executive function or executive attention was observed.
First author Chirag Vyas, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, said: “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.
“The meta-analysis of three separate cognition studies provides strong and consistent evidence that taking a daily multivitamin, containing more than 20 essential micronutrients, helps prevent memory loss and slow down cognitive aging.”
Olivia Okereke, director of Geriatric Psychiatry and the study’s senior author, added: “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 also highlights that this is the third COSMOS experiment to praise daily multivitamins in this way – adding even more weight to the findings.
Dr. JoAnn Manson explained: “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.”
Produced in association with SWNS Talker
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