A daily multivitamin can reduce brain aging and modestly slow down epigenetic aging clocks. In the COSMOS trial, older adults who took a standard Centrum Silver multivitamin daily for about 4 years performed better on cognitive tests and showed the equivalent of ~2 years less brain aging compared with... those taking a placebo. The multivitamin also slowed epigenetic aging clocks, with an effect equivalent to about 2.7 to 5 months of slowed biological aging. That may sound modest, but I don’t think it’s trivial, and Prof Steve Horvath says that effects from safe, low-cost interventions can matter if they’re sustained over years to decades—2 months of slower biological aging could translate to 2.5 years if a good habit is maintained. These data push back on the idea that multivitamins are “completely useless.” If you’re filling nutritional gaps consistently over time, even a small benefit to cognition and biological aging could become meaningful. From the latest episode of the FoundMyFitness podcast.show more

Full episode and show notes here.

I'm not a fan of synthetic vitamin supplements. It's better to eat real food and add natural supplements to the mix, like shilajit for example.

This is where people get prevention wrong. They’re looking for dramatic effects. Physiology is often a game of small advantages repeated thousands of times. A modest benefit sustained for years can become a meaningful difference in how the brain and body age. The body keeps score longer than we do.

Definetly the Fundamentals are, Maintains Variety of fruits during your life do not rely on supplements if, you have some allergies.

Whole foods have been the foundation of my nutrition plan for years. Combined with foods like sea moss, they can provide a wide range of vitamines, minerals, and other beneficial nutrients.

There's always been skepticism about multivitamins. But filling unknown gaps for pennies as a hedge against brain aging seems like obvious insurance.

Would love to see studies comparing quality of products. Centrum Silver is considered as a very average, generic MV brand. A brand like Thorne, or Solgar must have better outcomes.

What vitamin do you guys recommend for men?

Everyone dunks on basic multivitamins to sound smart, then Centrum shows up with actual human trial data. Glad someone did the real research.

Me: fully skeptical of multivitamin studies. Also me: reading the COSMOS data at 11 p.m. and side-eyeing the half-empty bottle in my cabinet.

lol, you showing Centrum is exactly what's wrong with influencers: sponsors dictate the content.

More nonsense epidemiology

This was actually a quite rigorous randomized controlled study, which makes the findings compelling!

No such thing as RCTs in humans. There's too many confounders, and it's too unethical to treat humans like lab mice. Having said that I think a daily MV is not a bad idea as a top up, especially if you're on a carb/plant based diet where micronutrients are hardly bioavailable

The COSMOS signal is real and underappreciated. One caveat worth holding: epigenetic clocks are proxies. Whether "5 months slower methylation" compounds linearly over decades — that's a model assumption. But consistent micronutrient adequacy probably matters more than we've credited.

This is great work and discovery. I would appreciate if I can get a link to the published article to see the biomarkers evaluated. I am also a pro-multivitamin researcher

I love how nerdy you are. Stunning person!

i see the modest gain. similar pattern shows with epitalon small epigenetic clock slowdown in early trials, potential larger healthspan impact.

@krishashok ipo ena solreenga :)

The COSMOS-Mind cognition signal likely runs through deficiency correction — B12, folate and B6 lower homocysteine, and elevated homocysteine independently accelerates cortical atrophy. In already-replete adults the effect shrinks. It reads as repletion, not a general nootropic.

Cognitive gains in COSMOS were modest and only in a subset. What's underreported: methylation clocks moved, but the effect was small relative to sleep debt or inflammation. Most people see bigger epigenetic shifts from fixing sleep consistency than adding a multivitamin.

Dr. Patrick, do you think the benefits would be offset by just taking magnesium, fish oil, and vitamin D3 K2? Would that give you most of the bang for the buck the multi is giving you?

That's hard to say, because even though those are some foundational nutrients that many are deficient in, we don't know how the other nutrients in the multivitamin/mineral are interacting to promote some of these effects.

Glad people are catching on to this! 🌿 For the best daily metabolic supplementation:

Cheapest longevity intervention most people already skip daily. Wild.

Any podcast clip about any supplement ever makes you wanna buy it immediately. That's why Supplement Finder exists.

i see the value in tiny sustained gains early peptide trials often start with modest shifts before larger clinical benefits appear.

curious how it interacts with sleep quality — a few nights of fragmented sleep moves those same methylation markers in the wrong direction faster than 4 years of supplementation can compensate for. the delta might not be additive.

Can you please tell me what a yearly mRNA covid booster does for your longevity?

This is great to know. Thanks for the studies. So, it is highly advisable for and adults to take multivitamins. But the multivitamin makes one eat a lot. What should we do about that? At what age, should an adult start implementing this?

Thank goodness for people that want to make products that benefit people at the end of the day. Which is why we ensure our family members take their vitamins every day. Good podcast.

Multivitin are scam

Interesting findings. The effect size is modest, but that's often the case with safe, low-cost interventions. The bigger takeaway may be that multivitamins aren't a substitute for a good diet, but they could help reduce the impact of small nutritional gaps over time.

@grok summarise and make me understand in easy way.

The COSMOS data is real. But a multi is a floor, not a ceiling. Sleep, zone 2 cardio, and social connection move the needle harder. The guys skipping those and buying Centrum are optimizing the wrong variable.

The COSMOS findings are compelling. Cognitive protection from a multivitamin in older adults challenges the idea that supplements are always noise. The question is whether the effect reflects B vitamin or folate repletion — or something less obvious.

Fair point. Vitamins and omegas are easy to talk about broadly, but the useful answer usually depends on the exact product and the person taking it. We audited Thorne Vitamin D + K2 Liquid here: