Taking a multivitamin may slow some signs of aging, new study suggests

Taking a multivitamin may slow some signs of aging, new study suggests

By Jackie Flynn Mogensen edited by Claire Cameron

Multivitamins are the most common dietary supplement in the U.S. People take these pills (or gummies, actually) for a variety of health reasons, but the science on what multivitamins can do for your health is mixed, and none of them have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. But interestingly, a new study suggests that taking a daily multivitamin can slow biological aging.

In a randomized clinical trial involving 958 adults age 60 or older, researchers found that taking a multivitamin-multimineral supplement for two years modestly slowed two molecular signals of aging in the body known as “epigenetic clocks.” Chemical changes to DNA called DNA methylation in specific parts of the genome can help estimate a person’s biological age. In the people taking the supplement, the clocks’ rate of increase slowed by about 1.5 to two months per year compared to the clocks of those taking the placebo. The findings were published on Monday i Natural medicine.

The results are “encouraging,” the researchers write in the paper, adding that more research is needed to understand how multivitamins affect biological aging.

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Experts not involved in the new study urged caution. While the researchers saw an effect with two epigenetic clocks called PCPhenoAge and PCGrimAge, three other epigenetic clocks included in the study showed no statistically significant change in their speed.

“The multivitamin produced small beneficial changes in two epigenetic aging markers, but not across all the clocks measured,” says José Ordovás, professor of nutrition and genetics at Tufts University, who was not involved in the study. “That makes the finding interesting, but it’s still a long way from showing that multivitamins greatly slow aging or improve longevity.”

One of the study’s strengths is that the researchers carefully matched the characteristics of people in the vitamin group to those in the placebo group, says Zachary Clayton, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz, who was also not involved in the research. “However, the magnitude of the observed differences was modest, and their clinical significance remains uncertain,” he says.

The study does not take into account a person’s exact diet or physical activity during the two-year period, and these factors cannot be ruled out as having an effect on biological ageing, he adds.

Nevertheless, in nutritional science, randomized clinical trials of this type are rare. They are not usually required to sell nutritional supplements such as multivitamins, even if the manufacturers claim specific health benefits. Further trials, the authors note, “are needed to confirm these findings and determine the role of (multivitamins) in prolonging healthy aging not only among older adults but also across the lifespan.”

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