Most people take multivitamins daily, and some believe it is some kind of insurance if their diet doesn’t have some essential nutrients. In addition, some believe it will help keep off disease by improving brain health, boosting immunity, or regulating metabolism.
Research on the health benefits of multivitamins has been mixed. For instance, the US Preventative Services Task Force recently reviewed 90 available studies on vitamins and supplements and concluded that the products don’t protect healthy adults with nutritional deficits against cancer, cardiovascular disease, or death from all causes.
Multivitamins can improve memory and brain function.
However, studies on different supplement combinations, doses, and populations revealed that the products could benefit brain function and memory. For example, a recent study published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia evaluated 2,200 participants above 65 years that were assigned to a placebo or cocoa, a placebo or multivitamin, and both multivitamin and cocoa for three years. Researchers used Centrum Silver, a multivitamin containing 27 vitamins plus minerals and other nutrients.
Once the cognition tests were analyzed, the group that received cocoa didn’t show any improvement, but those that took multivitamins had improved memory, executive function, and overall brain function.
Based on the findings, researchers concluded that multivitamin use for three years could slow age-related brain function decline by almost 60%.
More studies are needed to ascertain how multivitamins may benefit different ages.
However, the study alone is inadequate to infer routine multivitamins use for individuals of different ages. It may occur that the benefits witnessed in the study were because of deficiencies of particular nutrients for study participants. Researchers could not ascertain if this was true because it was not part of the study.
Additionally, it may be possible that the benefits reported were insignificant for a considerable difference in life, or they may wane with time. Equally, they might not impact preventing different forms of dementia. Also, past randomized, placebo-controlled studies have established that there was no brain function improvement in male physicians above 65 years that were taking multivitamins.
