Science and Technology Daily, Beijing, January 22 (Reporter Liu Xia) A new study conducted by scientists at Harvard University in the United States shows that elderly people who take multivitamins every day perform better in memory tests than those who take a placebo.
Relevant research papers were published in the latest issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The leader of the study, Joan Manson of Harvard Medical School, said that in their study, the results were equivalent to slowing down the cognitive aging of the elderly by two years, which is a very big improvement.
The study aimed to see whether taking a multivitamin or cocoa extract supplement could help prevent heart disease or cancer in people over 60.
A subset of participants took a memory test to measure whether any of the supplements had any psychological effects.
In the trial, 573 subjects were divided into two groups, taking either supplement or a placebo, and took a field memory test at the start of the study and two years later.
The results showed that the elderly who took multivitamins performed slightly better on memory tests than those who took a placebo.
This is consistent with results from online or telephone memory tests.
The findings suggest that multivitamins hold promise as a safe and affordable strategy to protect memory and slow cognitive aging in older adults.
However, researchers currently don't know which components of multivitamins provide these benefits.
Duane Mellor, a registered dietitian and senior lecturer at Aston University School of Medicine in the UK, pointed out that because the latest trial was not designed to study memory effects, further research is needed specifically on this.
This is not the final conclusion, and people still need to treat it with caution.
(Science and Technology Daily)