Could a Multivitamin Improve Your Memory?
Multivitamins aren’t a miracle cure, but they can act as a “dietary insurance plan” to help you fill in the gaps with your eating habits. Especially if you have certain food allergies, dietary restrictions or medical conditions that impact how and what you eat, taking a multivitamin may be crucial for individuals who are chronically deficient in key nutrients. But this popular supplement may do more than just that. A new study found that daily multivitamin use may play a role in enhancing memory.
The study, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, looked at data collected from over 3,500 older adults, ages 60 and older. The researchers randomly assigned participants with either a daily multivitamin supplement (they used Centrum Silver) or a placebo. Participants were evaluated annually for three years with a series of online neuropsychological tests, but keep in mind that neither the study participants nor the researchers knew which type of pills participants were given.
At the end of the one-year mark, those taking the multivitamin had significantly better scores on a test evaluating immediate recall than the placebo group. This was also shown across the three-year follow-up mark. But interestingly, there were also improvements seen in individuals with heart disease.
Excerpted from Good Housekeeping
