Taking a multivitamin pill every day in later life has been linked with slowing the ageing process by several months.
Researchers in the United States examined the impact of taking a daily multivitamin supplement for two years on five measures of ageing hidden within our DNA. At the end of the study, those who took the vitamin pills had a “biological age” that was on average four months younger than those who did not take any supplements.
The specific measures of ageing used in the study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, are known as epigenetic clocks. They track the chemical tags that get added to or removed from our DNA to switch genes off or on in a process known as DNA methylation.
• Vitamin D supplements could counter ageing, study suggests
This process can change as we age, enabling scientists to estimate whether a person’s body is in good or poor shape for their age. A fit and healthy 60-year-old might have cells that resemble those of a 55-year-old, giving them a biological age five years younger than their true age measured in years. If they are less healthy, their biological age may be months or years older than their true age, meaning that their body and cells have aged more quickly for a variety of reasons.
Scientists at Mass General Brigham in Boston, with funding from Mars Edge, a branch of the confectionery company, and the US National Institutes of Health, followed 958 healthy people with an average age of 70. They were randomly split into four groups. One group took a daily cocoa extract with a multivitamin pill; another group took a daily cocoa extract with a placebo; a third took a multivitamin pill with a placebo; and the final group took two placebos.
Blood samples were analysed to look at the patterns of DNA methylation at five sites in the participants’ DNA. The cocoa extract showed no meaningful impact. In those who took the multivitamin pills, two of the five ageing markers showed signs of “slowing biological ageing” that met the standard to be considered statistically significant.
This meant that, over the two years of the study, those who took the vitamin pills saw their biological age increase by between 2.7 and 5.1 months less than those who took no supplements.
• Daily multivitamin may keep your mind three years younger
The greatest benefits were seen in those whose biological age was above their true age, suggesting the pills could help to realign the two.
Independent experts who took no part in the study cautiously welcomed its findings. “The results show that multivitamin supplementation is associated with a slight reduction in the rate of biological ageing according to some of the epigenetic clocks analysed,” said Carmen Romero Ferreiro, a doctor of biology at Madrid’s Francisco de Vitoria University. “However, this effect is not observed across all the markers evaluated, and its magnitude is small.”
She said the two-year period was relatively short, and it remained unclear how a slowing of ageing in one epigenetic clock would translate into improvements in health or longevity for the person throughout their life.
Dr Laura Sinclair, a healthcare lecturer at the University of Exeter, said: “Epigenetic clocks are powerful tools to measure biological ageing, but they are only one piece of the ageing puzzle. Other hallmarks — things like DNA damage, changes in proteins and problems in cellular communication — also play a role in ageing. If we want to really know [whether] supplements can slow biological ageing, we need to look at the full picture.”
She said the findings did not necessarily “recommend [people] going out and buying supplements”, adding: “If a person eats a nutritionally balanced diet, many dietary supplements would probably be superfluous to their individual requirements. However, most adults in the UK are actually not eating a nutritionally balanced diet and so probably would benefit from a multivitamin-multimineral [supplement].”
