A two-year randomized trial of 958 older adults, published in Nature Medicine, found that a daily multivitamin-mineral modestly slowed biological aging.
The delay on two mortality-predictive clocks, PCGrimAge and PCPhenoAge, ran to roughly 2.7 to 5.1 months over the trial.
The work is part of the COSMOS study at Mass General Brigham, which tested a daily multivitamin (Centrum Silver), a cocoa flavanol extract, both, or a placebo. Average age at enrollment was about 70.
The cocoa extract showed no such effect on biological aging.
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What an epigenetic clock actually measures
Epigenetic clocks read patterns of DNA methylation, chemical tags that switch genes on and off as we age. Some patterns track biological aging more closely than birthdays do.
PCGrimAge and PCPhenoAge are two clocks that researchers have tied to earlier mortality, which is why the COSMOS team singled them out.
Bigger effect in adults aging faster
The slowing was more pronounced in participants whose biological age was already ahead of their chronological age at the start of the trial.
Lead author Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH, associate director of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Mass General Brigham, framed the takeaway in guarded terms.
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"This finding as part of a long-term, large-scale randomized clinical trial supports multivitamin use to improve biological aging in older adults (men aged ≥60 years and women aged ≥65 years)," he told Medical News Today.
Reasons to keep expectations modest
Independent researchers have been quick to flag the size of the effect. Luigi Fontana, professor at the University of Sydney, was blunt in comments to the Science Media Centre.
"The magnitude of the effect is extremely small, and the effect was not consistent across all the ageing measures tested," he said.
The trial drew funding from the National Institutes of Health and from industry, including Mars Edge and the multivitamin's maker. Participants were mostly non-Hispanic white, so how far the finding travels to more diverse populations is unclear.
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People on prescription medication should talk to a doctor before starting any supplement, since multivitamins can interact with drugs such as blood thinners.
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This article is made and published by Jesper Bengtson, who may have used AI in the preparation.