The whole notion that taking a simple daily multivitamin could improve overall cognition and memory for adults 65 and older is bound to raise hopes — and eyebrows. And yet those are the findings of a team led by scientists out of Wake Forest University’s medical school recently published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
While nutrition science is a field that has been plagued by poorly designed studies and charlatans peddling dubious cures, the findings come from a randomized, placebo-controlled trial, considered the gold standard by researchers. And it’s the first time such a study has revealed multivitamins can improve cognition in older adults.
Researchers found that adults 65 and older who took a common multivitamin over the course of a three-year study showed more improvement on overall cognition and memory scores than participants who took a placebo. The effects of the multivitamins were more pronounced among participants with a history of heart disease.
The Alzheimer’s Association and researchers aren’t ready to issue a sweeping recommendation for the public to take a daily multivitamin to slow the effects of aging on the brain. There is more work to be done among the researchers, who are trying to understand how it all works and whether their findings are reproducible.
They plan to conduct another trial in a larger and more diverse group of adults. The initial study wasn’t racially diverse: Nearly 90% of participants were white. The new trial will include a mix of blood biomarkers, brain imaging and in-depth studies of the microbiome to gain a greater understanding the biological changes that multivitamins might be triggering.
