Daily multivitamin supplementation benefits memory, cognition —Study

DAILY supplementation could be a ‘safe and accessible’ approach to supporting cognitive function, an expert has said.

Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the expert declared that daily multivitamin supplementation was linked to benefits in both memory and cognition.

In substudies of the Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), which investigated the effects of multivitamin supplementation on cognition through telephone – and web-based assessments, the results of this study suggest that daily multivitamin supplementation may help slow cognitive ageing in over 570 participants.

Dr Chirag M. Vyas, an instructor in clinical investigation at Massachusetts General Hospital, declared, “Preserving memory and cognition is a major priority for most older adults, and multivitamin supplements show promise as a safe and accessible approach to supporting cognitive function in ageing.”

Among COSMOS-Clinic participants, multivitamin supplementation had ‘modest’ beneficial effects on global cognition scores over two years. However, they found ‘a significantly more favourable change’ in episodic memory scores.

This study was also able to use in-person cognitive assessments, which can pick up smaller changes in cognitive function compared with other, more remote methods.

Based on the findings from other recent research in this area, this continues to affirm the lifestyle and dietary changes that can help reduce age-related cognitive decline.

More specifically, this study showed that multivitamins can benefit both global cognition (executive function, verbal memory and complex attention) and episodic memory (the ability to learn, store and retrieve information throughout the day).

Based on these findings, there is decent preliminary evidence that supplementing with a multivitamin may help older adults’ cognitive function. This is something clinicians can have a conversation with patients about, particularly if these patients may struggle to get quality nutrition.

Although it’s worth considering multivitamins, this should still be seen as a supportive approach to other lifestyle interventions like exercise, stress reduction and staying socially active.

It’s also important to note that supplementation is not something that should completely replace a healthy, well-balanced diet.