Daily multivitamin supplementation improves memory in older adults

"Multivitamin supplementation is promising as a safe and accessible approach for maintaining cognitive health in older adults," the authors reported in their study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "The effect of multivitamins was equivalent to about three years of age-related memory change."

For older adults, maintaining cognitive abilities holds importance, but only a few practical strategies currently exist to slow cognitive decline. Multivitamin supplementation promotes general health, but more clarity is needed on whether it favourably affects cognition in older age. Lok-Kin Yeung, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States, and colleagues aimed to determine the effect of daily multivitamin/multimineral supplementation on memory in older adults.

The COSMOS-Web ancillary study included 3562 older adults. They were randomly assigned to a daily multivitamin supplement (Centrum Silver) or placebo and made annual evaluations for three years with an internet-based battery of neuropsychological tests. The study's primary outcome was immediate recall performance on changes in episode memory or the ModRey test. The researchers also evaluated changes in performance on neuropsychological tasks of novel object recognition and executive function over the follow-up of 3 years and changes in episodic memory over three years.

The study revealed the following findings:

· Compared with placebo, participants randomly assigned to multivitamin supplementation had significantly better ModRey immediate recall at one year, the primary endpoint (t(5889) = 2.25), as well as across the three years of follow-up on average (t(5889) = 2.54).

· Multivitamin supplementation had no significant effects on secondary outcomes (changes in episodic memory over three years of follow-up and changes in performance on neuropsychological tasks of novel object recognition and executive function).

· Based on a cross-sectional analysis of the association between age and performance on the ModRey, we estimated that the effect of the multivitamin intervention improved memory performance above placebo by the equivalent of 3.1 y of age-related memory change.

"Multivitamin supplementation, however, did not significantly affect memory retention, executive function or novel object recognition," the researchers wrote.

Based on a cross-sectional analysis of the association between age and performance on the ModRey, the researchers estimated that the effect of the multivitamin intervention improved memory performance above placebo by the equivalent of 3.1 years of age-related memory change.

Reference:

Yeung LK, Alschuler DM, Wall M, Luttmann-Gibson H, Copeland T, Hale C, Sloan RP, Sesso HD, Manson JE, Brickman AM. Multivitamin Supplementation Improves Memory in Older Adults: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2023 May 24:S0002-9165(23)48904-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.05.011. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37244291.