A large clinical trial suggests that taking a daily multivitamin could help slow biological aging in older adults, especially in people whose bodies were aging faster than expected at the start of the study.
Researchers from Mass General Brigham analyzed data from older adults who participated in a randomized clinical trial and found that two years of multivitamin use was linked to slower biological aging across several DNA-based measurements. The effect was equal to roughly four fewer months of biological aging over the course of the study. The findings were published in Nature Medicine.
“There is a lot of interest today in identifying ways to not just live longer, but to live better,” said senior author Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH, associate director of the Division of Preventive Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine. “It was exciting to see benefits of a multivitamin linked with markers of biological aging. This study opens the door to learning more about accessible, safe interventions that contribute to healthier, higher-quality aging.”
Biological age reflects how quickly the body is aging at the cellular level, which may differ from a person’s actual age in years. To measure this process, researchers used “epigenetic clocks,” which estimate biological aging by examining small chemical changes in DNA over time.
These clocks focus on regions of DNA involved in controlling gene activity (known as DNA methylation). Because these changes naturally shift with age, scientists can use them to estimate aging speed and even predict risks linked to disease and mortality.
The new research used information from the COcoa Supplement Multivitamins Outcomes Study (COSMOS), a long-running clinical trial involving older adults. Investigators examined DNA methylation data from blood samples collected from 958 healthy participants whose average chronological age was 70.
Participants in the trial were randomly assigned to one of four groups: daily cocoa extract and multivitamin; daily cocoa extract and placebo; placebo and multivitamin; or placebo only.
Researchers compared changes in five separate epigenetic clocks at the beginning of the study and again after one and two years. Compared with participants who received only placebos, those taking a multivitamin showed slower biological aging across all five measurements. Two of the clocks, which are strongly associated with mortality risk, showed statistically significant slowing.
Overall, the findings suggested that multivitamin use reduced biological aging by about four months during the two-year period. The strongest effects appeared in participants whose biological age was already ahead of their chronological age when the trial began.
“We plan to do follow-up research to determine if the slowing of biological aging—observed through these five epigenetic clocks, and additional or new ones—persists after the trial ends,” said co-author and collaborator Yanbin Dong, MD, PhD, director of Georgia Prention Institute, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta Univeristy.
Researchers say more work is needed to understand how slowing biological aging may influence long-term health outcomes. The COSMOS team plans to continue studying whether the effects of daily multivitamin use could help explain previous findings connected to improved cognition and lower risks of cancer and cataracts.
“A lot of people take a multivitamin without necessarily knowing any benefits from taking it, so the more we can learn about its potential health benefits, the better,” said Sesso. “Within COSMOS, we are fortunate and excited to build upon a rich resource of biomarker data to test how two interventions may improve biological aging and reduce age-related clinical outcomes.”
For more information, visit www.massgeneralbrigham.org.
