Multivitamin supplements may lead to modest improvements in memory, according to findings involving a population of over 5,000 older adults.
 
These results are from the third major analysis of participants in the large-scale COSMOS Study, which evaluated how multivitamin/mineral supplementation and/or cocoa flavanols supplementation could impact cognitive performance in over 20,000 men and women. COSMOS was conducted by researchers at Mass General Brigham, and results were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  
 
In a meta-analysis of over 5,000 non-overlapping participants of the COSMOS trial, including 573 people who took part in in-person visits in addition to standard tests, those who took multivitamins experienced a statistically significant improvement in tests which measured domains of memory loss and cognitive aging.
 
In the in-clinic study, researchers administered detailed, in-person cognitive assessments in the subset of 573 COSMOS participants known as COSMOS-Clinic. Two previous studies tested multivitamin supplementation on cognition via telephone based cognitive assessments (COSMOS-MIND), and online web-based cognitive assessments (COSMOS-Web).
 
The investigators observed that, over the two year window, there was a modest benefit for the multivitamin compared to placebo over the two-year treatment period for the 573 people who had in-person visits. There was a statistically significant benefit of multivitamin supplementation for changes in episodic memory, but not in executive function or attention.
 
However, a meta-analysis on the three separate studies combined, in which there was no participant overlap, found significant benefits in both global cognition and memory. The authors estimated that, altogether, multivitamins slowed global cognitive aging by the equivalent of two years compared to placebo.
 
“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, MBBS, MPH, first author of the study, in a statement. Vyas is an instructor in investigation at the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system.
 
“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,” said Olivia Okereke, MD SM, senior author of the report and director of geriatric psychiatry at Mass General Hospital. “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.”
 
An important next step in this line of research is to identify one or more of the many potential mechanisms of action at play, with a focus on both nutritional status and other aging related factors, said Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH, co-lead of the study and executive director of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s division of preventive medicine. “A typical multivitamin such as that tested in COSMOS contains many essential vitamins and minerals that could explain its potential benefits.”