You have likely heard the news…a recent study called the Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study-Web. This study included 3,562 older adults. Individuals were randomly assigned to a daily multivitamin supplement or placebo and evaluated annually with a battery of neuropsychological tests over a three year period.
The commercial supplement for 50+ adults contains:
The stated primary outcome measure was a change in episodic memory, defined as immediate recall performance on the ModRey test, after one year of the supplement or placebo. The secondary outcome measure included change in episodic memory over three years of follow-up as well as changes in the performance on the neuropsychological tests.
The pre-specified primary outcome measure was a change in episodic memory, operationally defined as immediate recall performance on the ModRey test, after one year of intervention. Secondary outcome measures included change in episodic memory over three years of follow-up and changes in performance on the neuropsychological tasks of novel object recognition and executive function over three years.
Participants who took the multivitamin supplementation had significantly better ModRey immediate recall at one year as well as over the three years. There were no changes in episodic memory, performance on the tasks, object recognition or executive function. The researchers estimated that the effect of the multivitamin intervention and memory improvement over placebo was equivalent to 3.1 years of age related memory change. This means that they achieved a delay of age related memory changes of about 3 years.
Commentary:
I don’t think it gets much simpler and safe than this…a simple multivitamin that can delay age related memory changes. This does not mean dementia prevention or Alzheimer’s disease treatment but rather a safe strategy to slow age related cognitive decline.
There are many ingredients in a multivitamin formula so one might ask, is one or more ingredient having a greater effect than others? The answer is, we don’t know, but likely. Strong contenders would be one or more of the antioxidants and one or more of the B vitamins.
Reference: Yeung L, Alschuler T, Hale C, et al. Multivitamin supplementation improves memory in older adults: A randomized clinical trial . America Journal Clinical Nutrition. May 2023
