- A new study reports that age-related memory loss may be improved, at least in the short term, by taking a daily multivitamin.
- The researchers found that one year of multivitamins produced a similar effect to turning back the cognitive aging clock by over three years and that this effect persisted for the length of the study.
- Subjects with cardiovascular disease who took multivitamins experienced the greatest improvement in memory.
- It remains unclear which vitamins in the multivitamins helped strengthen memory, suggesting a need for further research.
Multivitamins are a safe and popular choice for helping people meet their nutritional needs.
For older adults, taking a daily multivitamin may improve memory and help slow age-related cognitive decline, according to new research from Columbia University in New York and Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard in Boston, MA.
The three-year study found that modest improvements in cognitive function remained for the duration of the research.
The study was published May 24 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The new study is a second, parallel trial accompanying the recently completed COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study Web, or COSMOS-Web study. Its larger aim was to investigate the beneficial memory effects of multivitamins and cocoa flavanols. But the current study reports only the effects of taking multivitamins.
For the study, 3,562 older adults were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The first took a daily multivitamin — Centrum Silver for adults — over the course of the three-year study. The second group took a placebo.
Each year, participant memories were assessed via online neuropsychological tests. The researchers were primarily interested in measuring the strength of individuals’ episodic memory, or immediate recall.
After 1 year of taking multivitamins, study participants experienced a modest improvement in memory that was the equivalent of turning back the clock by about 3.1 years…
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