Can a Daily Multivitamin Protect Your Memory?
A daily multivitamin or multi-mineral supplement improved memory in older adults over a three-year period, a new study shows. If supported by future research, the findings could provide an easy and inexpensive way to slow age-related memory decline, according to researchers. In the study, which, involved more than 3,500 adults over age 60, researchers randomly assigned participants to take a daily multivitamin supplement or an inactive placebo for three years.
At the start of the study and at the end of each year, participants took an online cognitive test at home to assess their short-term memory. By the end of the first year, both groups saw improvements in memory, but the group taking a daily multivitamin saw a larger improvement. The researchers estimate that the changes in the multivitamin group, which were sustained over the three years of the study, were equivalent to about three years of age-related memory decline. Still, that improvement was modest and the data does not account for the long term.
“You basically had stabilization of memory, where you held off cognitive decline across that three-year time period,” Dr. Thomas Holland, a physician scientist in the Division of Digestive Diseases and Nutrition at RUSH University in Chicago, who was not involved in the study, told Healthline.
Excerpted from Healthline
