People aged 65 or more are advised to take one supplement for more than three years to improve brain health and reduce risk of dementia, study

It was suggested that taking one supplement each day over a period of three years could make a material effect for people over the age of 65.

Professor Laura Baker, who was involved in the study and is a co-principal investigator at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina, United States, stated that “our study revealed that daily multivitamin-mineral intake resulted in significant cognitive improvement.”

This is the first evidence of cognitive advantage in an extensive trial that was conducted over a longer period of time on older persons receiving multivitamin supplementation.

“There is an urgent need for therapies that are both safe and economical to safeguard cognition in older persons against the progression of age-related decline.”

The members of the research team hypothesized that taking multivitamins for three years would roughly equate to a 60 percent slower rate of cognitive deterioration, which would be equivalent to almost two more years of life.

Researchers investigated whether or whether giving older persons a cocoa extract or a multivitamin on a daily basis led to improvements in their cognitive abilities. Participants had have been at least 65 years old to take part, and they were monitored for a period of three years.

They were given tests to evaluate their memory and other cognitive skills at the beginning of the study and again once a year thereafter.

The team discovered that multivitamins had a significant impact, and that the benefits were more pronounced in participants who had cardiovascular disease. This is significant because people with cardiovascular disease are already at an increased risk of cognitive decline, so this finding is important.

However, Professor Baker stated that additional research is required to validate the findings before any suggestions regarding health can be made.

She went on to say that it was too soon to encourage taking daily multivitamin supplements in order to prevent cognitive impairment.

It is necessary to conduct additional study on a population that is both larger and more diversified. In addition, there is still a lot of work to be done before we have a clearer understanding of why taking a multivitamin can be beneficial to the cognition of older persons.

The research was analyzed and the results were presented in a journal called Alzheimer’s & Dementia.