Can taking a daily multivitamin slow down aging? Here’s what a new study found

LOS ANGELES (KABC) — You eat well, exercise and work out your brain, but is there something else you can do to slow aging?

“Now we’ll add a multivitamin,” said culinary medicine specialist Dr. Terry Simpson with Dignity Health St. John’s Regional Medical Center.

For years now, experts have been saying that multivitamins that contain A, C, D, E and B, along with minerals like zinc, selenium and calcium had little evidence to support its use. Now researchers are changing their tune.

“Multivitamins aren’t really magic pills, but they may be a simple way to support healthy aging,” he said.

In a two-year Nature Medicine study, daily multivitamin use appeared to slow biological age compared to chronological age of over two years. The trial involved nearly 1,000 older adults taking Centrum Silver.

Biologic age looks at a surrogate marker on the DNA. It showed that their DNA hasn’t aged as much. So it’s more of a surrogate marker, but it is real and not to be ignored.

So on the cellular level, the anti-aging effect translated to roughly 2.7 to 5.1 months less biological aging after two years of multivitamin use.

“People, when they get to be 60 or 65, etc., they should think about maybe this should be a part of their daily regimen, along with a healthy diet and exercise,” Simpson said.

Centrum Silver may be the supplement used in the trial, but Simpson says any similar one should yield the same effects. Different products use different fillers so they may not all agree with you, so find one that does.

But a daily multivitamin is only a small part of what you need for healthy aging.

“We want to continue to maintain a healthy diet, like Mediterranean, DASH, which is a lot of fruits, vegetables and fish. We also would consider taking a multivitamin as just a little bit of extra insurance,” he said.

Simpson says multivitamins are easy and inexpensive. But they don’t reverse Alzheimer’s nor cognitive decline. Those who might benefit most are older adults with cardiovascular disease, nutrition gaps and those who experience faster biologic aging.