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 findings didn’t surprise the researchers — rather they shocked them, said Laura Baker, study author and professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine 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 assigned to take either a flavonoid-containing cocoa extract supplement, a multivitamin, or a placebo medicine every day for three. years. No one, not even the researchers, knew who was assigned to which daily routine until the results were revealed.
“We really thought that cocoa extract was going to have some cognitive benefits based on previous reports of cardiovascular benefits. So we’re expecting this big revelation in our analysis of the data – and it wasn’t the cocoa extract that benefited cognition, but rather the multivitamin,” Baker said. “We are excited because our findings have revealed a new avenue of investigation – for a simple, accessible, safe, inexpensive intervention that could have the potential to provide a layer of protection against cognitive decline.”
However, she added that she and her team are not ready to recommend that older adults immediately add a daily multivitamin to their routine based on these results alone.
The findings, published Wednesday in 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 those recommendations,” Baker said. “I feel like we need to do that in another study.”
The new study included 2,262 people, aged 65 and over, 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 scored on story recall, verbal fluency, and digit sorting, among other tests.
The researchers analyzed function, based on test scores, between those who took cocoa extract daily compared to a placebo and between those who took the daily multivitamin compared to a placebo.
The researchers found that three years of taking the multivitamin appeared to slow cognitive aging by 1.8 years, or 60%, compared to a placebo. Taking cocoa extract supplements daily for three years did not affect cognitive function, the researchers wrote.
The study – supported by the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health – also found that multivitamins were more beneficial for older adults who had a history of cardiovascular disease.
“It is known that those with cardiovascular risk factors could have lower levels of vitamins and minerals in their blood. So supplementing with these vitamins and minerals could improve cardiovascular health and, because of that, improve cognitive health – and we know there is a strong connection between cardiovascular health and brain health,” said Dr. Keith Vossel, professor of neurology and director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer 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 exercising — may also benefit the brain, said Vossel, who was not involved in the new study. study.
“If we can actually eliminate or actually prevent chronic disease, we could prevent dementia,” he said. “About up to 40% of dementia could be prevented with better preventive measures throughout life.”
The specific factors leading to this link between a multivitamin and cognitive function are unclear and require more research, but Baker and her team believe the findings may be linked to how multivitamins may benefit people who they may be deficient in micronutrients such as vitamin C, vitamin E, magnesium or zinc.
“With aging, the condition can get worse. Many of our seniors do not have adequate nutrition for a variety of reasons,” Baker said.
“As we age, we are more likely to have medical conditions that can compromise micronutrient adequacy,” he said. “Medications we take for these conditions can also affect micronutrient adequacy by interfering with the body’s ability to absorb these essential nutrients from the diet.”
Other studies have had mixed results linking certain vitamins and supplements to dementia risk, Vossel cautioned.
“We’ve gone down this road a little bit before with research on vitamins and dementia. For many years, dementia specialists have recommended vitamin E based on some early promising results with vitamin E and cognitive function, and especially those with Alzheimer’s disease. But then, the results have been mixed ever since,” Vossel said.
Seniors should talk to their primary care doctor before starting a vitamin or supplement routine, he added.
“Supplementation is usually safe, but should be carefully monitored, especially for those with memory loss, because overdosing on vitamins can be very dangerous,” Vossel said. “Even overdosing on vitamin E or taking high levels of vitamin E can increase the risk of bleeding. So these are just a few thoughts.”
Overall, the new study’s findings are encouraging, said Heather Snyder, vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association.
“There is certainly follow-up work that we need to see happen – particularly independent confirmation in studies that are in larger and different populations – but this is encouraging,” he said. “There’s more research that needs to be done to understand what it might be in the multivitamin that might be of benefit.”
