Brain Health and Multivitamins

By Jane Farrell

A new Harvard study, COSMOS 2, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, has shown that taking a multivitamin for one year was associated with improved memory and cognition equivalent to reversing age-related memory loss by three years.

The randomized clinical trial, which included 3,500 participants aged 60 and over, was the second COSMOS study to show that multivitamins significantly improved brain function—with the “vitamin group” far surpassing the placebo group.

“The benefits of taking a multivitamin were maintained throughout the three years of the study,” says board certified internist Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, who advocates nutritional supplementation as a complement to the standard American diet and standard medical therapies. “This confirms numerous earlier studies showing that folate (simple folic acid) dramatically lowers dementia risk.” In addition to a daily multivitamin, he recommends supplementing with a good B complex, folate, vitamin D, and magnesium—all with proven efficacy.

Teitelbaum is one of the world’s leading researchers on effective treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia. His landmark double-blind, placebo-controlled study published in the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (8:2, 2001) showed profound benefits from nutrition as well as sleep, hormones, treating hidden infections/inflammation, and exercising as able.

“The reason doctors have traditionally been slow to recommend multivitamins is because their training has been pharmaceutical-focused and sorely deficient in nutritional education, he says. “This new COSMOS study is an important step towards setting the record straight—and represents a wakeup call to clinicians, researchers, and media that cover latest medical findings.”

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