The Study
Improved Blood Biomarkers but No Cognitive Effects from 16 Weeks of Multivitamin Supplementation in Healthy Older Adults
This study gave people multivitamins and checked if their brains worked better, but they didn’t. However, their blood showed some good changes, like less junk in it. So we know the vitamins changed their blood, but we don’t know if that helped their memory or thinking.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Scientists gave older adults daily multivitamins for 4 months to see if their memory and thinking got better.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 577 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Even though the body’s chemistry improved, the brain didn’t show any measurable gains in thinking skills during this time.
- 2Vitamins raised B6 and B12 in everyone, lowered 'bad' inflammation in women, lowered homocysteine in men, and improved cholesterol in men — but no one got better at memory or focus tests.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Nutrients
Year
2015
Authors
E. Harris, H. Macpherson, A. Pipingas
Related Content
Claims (7)
Older adults who take multivitamins show cognitive test scores similar to those of people two years younger who do not take multivitamins.
Daily multivitamin-mineral supplementation in older adults reduces cognitive aging by 2–3 years, as measured by improvements in global cognition, episodic memory, and immediate verbal memory, independent of assessment modality.
Taking a daily multivitamin for 16 weeks does not improve performance on tests of memory and thinking skills in healthy adults aged 55 to 65, even though some biological markers changed.
Taking a daily multivitamin, mineral, and herbal supplement for 16 weeks raises blood levels of vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 in healthy adults aged 55–65, with large effect sizes observed for both vitamins.
In healthy men aged 55–65, taking a multivitamin daily for 16 weeks lowers LDL cholesterol and improves the ratio of LDL to HDL cholesterol. These changes do not occur in women taking the same supplement.
In healthy men and women aged 55 to 65, taking a multivitamin for 16 weeks lowers homocysteine levels by 9.3% on average in men but does not lower homocysteine levels in women.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.