A Daily Multivitamin Can Actually Slow Down Your Biological Clock, Study Finds

Staying one step ahead of the smart mower is no easy task. But research today shows that a little extra once a day can help.

Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and others studied thousands of older adults who were asked to take a daily multivitamin and multimineral supplement. They found evidence that the daily supplement slowed two biomarkers associated with aging by several months over two years. Although modest, the findings suggest that these supplements may have a positive effect on both our lifespan and the years of healthy human life, according to the researchers.

“Living longer is one thing; living better is just as important,” study author Howard Sesso, associate director of the Brigham’s division of preventive medicine, told Gizmodo.

COSMOS test

Between 2014 and 2020, Sesso and his team conducted a large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial. SPACE. At the start of the study, 21,442 men and women (mean age 72) without major chronic diseases participated. Volunteers were asked to take either a daily multivitamin, daily cocoa extract, both, or a placebo. Then they followed them for several years.

The team has already published some COSMOS results. They are found found that people in the multivitamin group had improved memory compared to the placebo group, equivalent to a three-year delay in age-related memory decline, for example. In this latest study, they looked at a subset (about 1,000) of COSMOS participants who provided blood samples throughout the study.

Although we all wear out as we age, some people decline faster or slower than others. To better estimate this true rate of aging, scientists have begun to create “epigenetic clocks”; these clocks measure how certain DNA patterns in our blood change over time, linked to aging or earlier death. Using blood samples, the researchers tracked the rate of change of five different clock patterns among their volunteers.

The researchers observed a significant reduction in two of these hours in people taking the multivitamin compared to the placebo group: PCPhenoAge and PCGrimAge. These volunteers saw an average delay of 2.6 months on PCPhenoAge and 1.4 months on PCGrimAge. And specifically, people who seemed to age faster at the beginning of the study saw a greater delay in their clocks at the end of the study. These were the team’s findings has been published Monday in Natural Medicine.

What does this anti aging mean?

The researchers caution that we still don’t fully understand how well these DNA clocks work, and whether the potential delays we can cause them are related to tangible health benefits. The COSMOS study included mostly older adults over the age of 70, so there is uncertainty about how beneficial multivitamins may be in middle-aged or younger adults.

“We still need to understand how much biological aging has improved feels Like it’s out of our DNA,” Sesso said.

At the same time, because COSMOS is a large-scale clinical trial, these findings are more reliable than many other studies looking at aging and epigenetic clocks, Sesso added. And basic research has already identified some potentially real improvements. In addition to enhanced cognition, there are researchers, for example found evidence Daily multivitamin use may reduce the risk of lung cancer.

So the researchers are optimistic that their work highlights the true health benefits of taking these supplements, even if there are still many questions to be answered about their effects on aging. “We believe this finding could translate into prevention of chronic disease and early death,” Sesso said.

The team plans to continue to examine data from COSMOS and other clinical trials of supplements. And they call for further clinical studies to test how other lifestyle or pharmaceutical interventions might affect our biological clocks and how we age.

Age comes to us all. But scientists hope to continue to find ways to make this journey as smooth as possible until the end.