Daily multivitamin may improve cognition in the elderly, says study

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

The findings did not surprise the researchers — rather, they were shocked, said Laura Baker, study author and professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, United States.

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

The researchers – from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston – looked at cognitive function in older adults who were selected to take a flavonoid-containing cocoa extract supplement, a multivitamin, or a placebo. no effect) every day for three years. No one, not even the researchers, knew who was chosen for which daily diet until the results were revealed.

“We really believed that cocoa extract would have some benefits for cognition based on previous studies of cardiovascular benefits. So we’re waiting for that big reveal in our data analysis — and it wasn’t the cocoa extract that benefited cognition, it was the multivitamin,” Baker said.

“We are excited that our findings have pointed a new avenue for investigation – towards a simple, affordable, safe and inexpensive intervention that could have the potential to provide a layer of protection against cognitive decline.”

But she added that she and her team are not ready to recommend that seniors immediately add a daily multivitamin your routine based on these results alone.

The findings, published this Wednesday (14) in the Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, are not definitive and cannot be generalized to the public. More research is needed to confirm them.

“It’s 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, age 65 and older, enrolled between August 2016 and August 2017 and followed for three years. Participants completed telephone tests annually to assess their cognitive function. They were scored on storytelling, verbal fluency, and digit ordering, among other tests.

The researchers looked at the function, based on test results, among those who took cocoa extract daily compared to a placebo, and among those who took the daily multivitamin compared to a placebo.

The researchers found that three years of taking the multivitamin appeared to have delayed cognitive aging by 1.8 years, or 60%, compared with the placebo. Daily cocoa extract supplementation for three years did not affect cognitive function, the researchers wrote.

The study — supported by the National Institutes of Aging at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — also found that multivitamins were most beneficial for older adults who had a history of cardiovascular disease.

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

Thanks to this connection between cardiovascular and brain health, taking steps to prevent cardiovascular disease or other chronic diseases — such as maintaining a healthy diet and exercise — may also benefit the brain, said Vossel, who was not involved in the new study.

“If we can really eliminate or actually prevent chronic disease, we can prevent dementia,” he said. “Approximately up to 40% of dementia could be prevented with only better lifelong preventive measures.”

The specific factors driving this link between a multivitamin and cognitive function are unclear and require further research, but Baker and his team think the findings may be related to how multivitamins may benefit people lacking micronutrients such as vitamin C. , vitamin E, magnesium or zinc.

“With aging, the situation can get worse. Many of our seniors lack adequate nutrition for a variety of reasons,” Baker said.

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

‘We’ve been down this road a little before’

Other studies have had mixed results on the association between certain vitamins and supplements and risk of dementia, warned Vossel.

“We’ve been down this road a little bit before with research on vitamins and dementia. For many years, dementia experts recommended vitamin E based on some promising early results with vitamin E and cognition, and especially those with Alzheimer’s disease, but the results have been mixed since then,” Vossel said.

You Older adults should talk to their primary care physician before starting a routine of vitamins or supplements he added.

“Supplementary is usually safe, but needs to be monitored carefully , especially for those who have memory loss, because overdose of vitamins can be very dangerous,” said Vossel. “Even overdose of vitamin E or taking high levels of vitamin E can increase the risk of bleeding. So these are just a few considerations.”

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

“Certainly there is follow-up work that we need to see happen – particularly independent confirmation in studies that are in larger and more diverse populations – but this is encouraging,” she said. “There’s more research that needs to be done to understand what might be in the multivitamin that might have a benefit.”