Study finds potential link between daily multivitamin and improved cognition in older adults

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WINSTON-SALEM, NC — Taking a daily multivitamin may be associated with improved brain function in older adults, a new study says, and the benefit appears to be greater for those with a history of cardiovascular disease.

The results didn’t surprise the researchers — they were rather shocked, said Laura Baker, study author and professor of gerontology and geriatrics at Wake Forest University in North Carolina.

“I have to use the word ‘shocked,'” Baker said.

The researchers — from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston — analyzed cognitive function in older adults who were instructed to take either a cocoa extract supplement containing flavonoids, a multivitamin, or a daily dose of three taking a placebo years. Nobody, not even the researchers, knew who was assigned to which daily routine until the results were announced.

“We genuinely believed that the cocoa extract would have some cognition benefits based on previous reports of cardiovascular benefits. So we’re waiting for this big revelation in our data analysis — and it wasn’t the cacao extract that benefited cognition, it was the multivitamin,” said Baker. accessible, safe, and inexpensive intervention that may have the potential to provide a protective layer against cognitive decline.”

However, she added that based on these results alone, she and her team are unwilling to recommend that older adults immediately add a daily multivitamin to their routine.

The findings, published Wednesday in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, are not definitive and cannot be generalized to the public. Further research is needed to confirm them.

“It is too early to make these recommendations,” Baker said. “I feel like we need to do that in another study.”

Finding Connections in Brain Health

The new study included 2,262 people ages 65 and older who were enrolled between August 2016 and August 2017 and followed for three years. Participants completed annual telephone tests to assess their cognitive function. They were rated on, among other things, remembering stories, demonstrating verbal fluency, and ordering digits.

Researchers analyzed function based on test results in those taking the daily cocoa extract versus a placebo and those taking the daily multivitamin versus a placebo.

The researchers found that taking the multivitamin for three years appeared to have slowed cognitive aging by 1.8 years, or 60%, compared to the placebo. Daily cocoa extract supplementation for three years had no effect on cognitive function, the researchers wrote.

The study, supported by the National Institutes on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, also found that multivitamins are most beneficial for older adults with a history of cardiovascular disease.

“It is known that people with cardiovascular risk factors may have lower levels of vitamins and minerals in their blood. So supplementing these vitamins and minerals could improve cardiovascular health, and therefore cognitive health — and we know there’s a strong link between cardiovascular health and brain health,” said Keith Vossel, MD, professor of neurology and director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Care at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Thanks to this link between cardiovascular and brain health, taking steps to prevent cardiovascular disease or other chronic illnesses — such as eating a healthy diet and exercising — can also benefit the brain, said Vossel, who doesn’t take part in the new study was involved.

“If we can really eliminate or really prevent chronic diseases, we could prevent dementia,” he said. “Approximately up to 40% of dementia cases could be prevented with only better preventive measures throughout the lifespan.”

The specific factors driving this link between a multivitamin and cognitive function are unclear and require further research, but Baker and her team believe the findings may be related to how multivitamins may benefit people who may be deprived of micronutrients like vitamin C and lack of vitamin E, magnesium or zinc.

“The situation can get worse as you get older. Many of our older adults don’t have adequate nutrition for a variety of reasons,” Baker said.

“The older we get, the more likely we are to have medical conditions that can affect micronutrient supply,” she said. “The drugs we take for these conditions can also affect micronutrient supply by interfering with the body’s ability to absorb these essential nutrients from food.”

“We walked this path a little earlier”

Other studies have had mixed results linking certain vitamins and supplements to dementia risk, Vossel warned.

“We were already a little on this path with vitamin and dementia research. For many years, dementia specialists have recommended vitamin E based on some early promising results with vitamin E and cognition, particularly in those with Alzheimer’s disease. The results have since been mixed,” Vossel said.

Older adults should check with their GP before beginning any vitamin or supplement routine, he added.

“Supplement is usually safe, but it needs to be carefully monitored, especially in people with memory loss, because vitamin overdose can be very dangerous,” Vossel said. “The risk of bleeding can also increase with an overdose of vitamin E or ingestion of high vitamin E levels. So these are just a few considerations.”

Overall, the results of the new study are encouraging, said Heather Snyder, vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association.

“There’s certainly follow-up work we need to see — particularly independent confirmation in studies done on larger and more diverse populations — but that’s encouraging,” she said. “More research needs to be done to understand what might be in the multivitamin that might have a benefit.”

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