One out of three adults take a daily multivitamin to improve overall health, boost their intake of specific nutrients, and prevent disease, even though there’s not all that much scientific evidence that multivitamins are helpful across the board. But for certain populations, research suggests they may have a beneficial effect. In particular, several studies have shown that multivitamins may help with memory and cognitive function in older adults.
Based on data from more than 3,500 adults ages 60 and up, researchers from Columbia University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that after one year, participants using multivitamin supplements performed significantly better on memory tests compared with those taking a placebo “dummy” pill, according to a study published in 2023 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. That benefit was maintained over three years of follow-up.
“Multivitamins basically prevented three years of age-related memory loss,” says a co-leader of the study, JoAnn Manson, MD, MPH, the chief of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “Multivitamins are a safe, accessible, and affordable approach to protecting cognitive health,” Dr. Manson says.
A later meta-analysis of the same research effort, published in 2024, found that daily supplementation with a multivitamin, compared with a placebo, significantly benefited both global cognition and episodic memory, supporting the use of a daily multivitamin in preventing cognitive decline among older adults.
Still, conclusive evidence of the benefit of multivitamins on memory is needed. An earlier but large review of studies totaling over 83,000 participants did not find “evidence that any vitamin or mineral supplementation strategy for cognitively healthy adults in mid or late life has a meaningful effect on cognitive decline or dementia” — although researchers noted that the data on supplementation starting in midlife (<60 years) was lacking.
Multivitamins Are No Substitute for Healthy Diet and Exercise
Results from the 2023 analysis confirmed an earlier study co-led by Manson that linked daily multivitamins to the slowing of cognitive decline. In that research, investigators tested more than 2,200 older adults for three years and discovered that daily multivitamin use was associated with a 60 percent slowing of cognitive aging compared with a placebo.
Manson emphasizes, however, that multivitamins are no substitute for a healthy diet and healthy lifestyle factors like regular exercise. She views the multivitamin as having a potentially complementary role — where it can especially help those who have some dietary inadequacies.
“We’re not recommending that you just throw multivitamins at a fast food diet full of processed and fried foods,” she says. “Our first recommendation is that you should try to improve your diet and not just start popping pills.”
Findings Suggest Benefit Regardless of Current Eating Habits
For the 2023 analysis, the study authors followed 3,562 older adults who were randomly divided into two groups: one assigned to a daily multivitamin supplement — the study used the Centrum Silver brand — and the other given a daily placebo. The average age was 71, about one-third were men, and just over 93 percent were white.
At the outset, participants’ diets were assessed through the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, which grades diet on a scale of 0 to 110. Higher scores represent healthier eating habits. The average score for these research subjects was 43, suggesting that many diets were not meeting ideal nutritional standards, but authors called the average consistent with the general U.S. population.
Because a statistically significant benefit was seen across the entire study population, the results suggest that even those who were eating a healthy diet were getting some benefit from taking multivitamin, according to Manson.
While details on vitamin and micronutrient deficiencies were not measured, scientists collected blood samples from a large percentage of the study population, and research into baseline nutritional status along with some baseline biomarkers of inflammation, cholesterol, and blood sugar, among others, is underway.
The Centrum vitamin used in the study contains B vitamins as well as vitamins D, C, A, and other nutrients. While research has found low levels of B12 and vitamin D to be associated with cognitive decline, Manson says that the mental benefit could not be attributed to any specific micronutrients at this stage, and many of the essential vitamins and minerals in the multivitamin could be contributing to the findings.
Although Centrum Silver was used in the study, Manson believes any high-quality, standard multivitamin is likely to provide these memory and cognitive benefits.
Study authors noted that those who had a prior history of cardiovascular disease (under 5 percent of the study population) did better with the multivitamins in terms of cognitive improvement. As to why this is the case, more extensive investigation is needed, according to the researchers.
How Researchers Measured Memory Gain
Those enrolled in the study completed self-administered, web-based assessments of memory and cognition annually over three years. For example, a test for memory recall required participants to view a list of 20 words and then type in all the words they remembered. For those in the vitamin group, performance improved on average from 7.10 words at study start to 7.81 words at one year — an increase of 0.71 words.
The average in the placebo group was 7.21 at study start, and improved by 0.44 to 7.65 after one year.
This effect of vitamin supplementation on memory was sustained over three years. While the effect was “significant,” the authors recognized that it was also small and may not be noticeable to all individuals taking vitamins — adding that “even small effect sizes can result in large health benefits at the population level.”
Not All Experts Are on Board With Multivitamin for Memory
Jeffrey Linder, MD, MPH, the chief of general internal medicine at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, calls the results “intriguing,” but he did not find them “practice-changing.”
“They found a slight difference in immediate memory recall at year one, but not in years two or three,” says Dr. Linder, who was not involved in the research. “I have a hard time telling patients they should take a multivitamin to improve their word recall one year later — by about one-quarter of a word over the placebo group — and then there being no differences in years two and three.”
Vitamin takers in this study also performed no better in tests of their longer-term memory, visual memory, or executive function — mental abilities that allow us to plan, focus attention, remember, and juggle multiple tasks.
In a past article published by Northwestern, Linder referred to multivitamins as a “waste of money,” and emphasized “the evidence-based practices of eating healthy and exercising.” In 2020, multivitamins generated an estimated $8 billion in sales in the United States.
“I worry that people are substituting a multivitamin in place of a good diet or as an insurance policy against a bad diet,” says Linder. “I worry that all the focus on supplements and vitamins distract people from things that really keep us healthy, like exercise and eating a healthy, well-balanced diet with lots of fruits and vegetables.”
Linder adds that for those who follow healthy practices, vitamin deficiencies are rare.
More Data Is Needed to Determine Multivitamin Benefits for Different Groups
Still, Linder sees no harm in taking a daily multivitamin and would like to see longer-term randomized controlled trials assessing various measures of cognition reported.
Manson and her colleagues plan to do more extensive research on this topic, investigating if benefits are greater for those with lower nutritional status and lower socioeconomic status, and if younger groups of people experience mental gains from multivitamins. Adam Brickman, PhD, a professor of neuropsychology at Columbia and a coauthor with Manson, says the research team is in the process of preparing a grant application to address this exact question, though it would be several years before any study results are available.
“We now have separate trials showing benefits for memory and cognition with the multivitamins compared to placebo,” says Manson. “We know that nutrition is important for brain health, and this is such a clear signal of benefit.”
The Takeaway
For adults 60 and up, a daily multivitamin might prevent memory decline that would occur without the supplement. In a large study population, people taking a multivitamin performed better on memory tests than those who took a placebo pill. Multivitamin use has also been linked to the slowing of cognitive aging and improvement in episodic memory. While the positive effects were seen across the study population — meaning that even people with a healthy diet were getting a benefit, as well as those who may be lacking in certain nutrients — remember that multivitamins are not a substitute for healthy eating and regular exercise.
Jason Chua, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Division of Movement Disorders at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He received his training at the University of Michigan, where he obtained medical and graduate degrees, then completed a residency in neurology and a combined clinical/research fellowship in movement disorders and neurodegeneration.
Dr. Chua’s primary research interests are in neurodegenerative disease, with a special focus on the cellular housekeeping pathway of autophagy and its impact on disease development in diseases such as Parkinson disease. His work has been supported by multiple research training and career development grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the American Academy of Neurology. He is the primary or coauthor of 14 peer-reviewed scientific publications and two peer-reviewed online learning modules from the American Academy of Neurology. He is also a contributing author to The Little Black Book of Neurology by Osama Zaldat, MD and Alan Lerner, MD, and has peer reviewed for the scientific journals Autophagy, eLife, and Neurobiology of Disease.
Don Rauf has been a freelance health writer for over 12 years and his writing has been featured in HealthDay, CBS News, WebMD, U.S. News & World Report, Mental Floss, United Press International (UPI), Health, and MedicineNet. He was previously a reporter for DailyRx.com where he covered stories related to cardiology, diabetes, lung cancer, prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction, menopause, and allergies. He has interviewed doctors and pharmaceutical representatives in the U.S. and abroad.
He is a prolific writer and has written more than 50 books, including Lost America: Vanished Civilizations, Abandoned Towns, and Roadside Attractions. Rauf lives in Seattle, Washington.
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