There is an old adage that “an apple a day, keeps the doctor away.” A new study suggests that it may actually be a daily multivitamin!
Initial results presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, but not yet published in a medical journal, indicate that older adults who took a daily multivitamin had significantly better measures of functional health after three years than those who took a placebo.
“The findings show that a daily multivitamin may be a simple, low-risk strategy to help older adults maintain cardiovascular-related functional health and quality of life,” says the research author Yanbin Dong, MD, PhD, a cardiologist and the director of the Georgia Prevention Institute of the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
Key Takeaways From This Study:
Dr. Dong and his collaborators reviewed data from more than 16,000 individuals ages 60 and older without major cardiovascular disease at the study’s start. Participants were randomly assigned to take a daily multivitamin, a cocoa extract supplement, both, or neither, with placebos used for the control group and for those taking only one supplement.
The key takeaways from the as yet to be published study include:
- A multivitamin once a day may modestly improve cardiovascular health and day-to-day function.
- After three years, scientists found that multivitamins improved symptom burden by an average of 0.45 points and a person’s clinical summary score (an average of symptom burden and physical ability scores) by 0.30 points, according to Dong.
- Individuals with narrowing of the arteries in the neck (carotid stenosis) may see more apparent benefits from multivitamin use.
- Older adults considering taking a multivitamin should consult with a healthcare provider.
Despite the results of their study, Dong and his colleagues still stress that good nutrition for any person begins with healthy foods. But for those who may not be able to achieve a healthy diet a daily multivitamin may be the answer.