Very often I have a conversation with a patient who is just feeling exhausted. They often say they cannot understand why they are feeling so tired despite being active, eating well and taking multivitamins every day. It is true that sometimes even if people do everything right, sometimes the body might go a little wrong and many people turn to the world of vitamin and mineral supplements. But do they help?
Yes there may be some benefit in vitamin D over the winter, and if you’re vegan please take some B12 supplements. But multivitamins? If you are eating a normal diet then surely there is no need for extra? A recent survey by Which magazine UK, suggests that more three quarters of the UK population takes some type of vitamin, mineral or food supplement, spending around £1.5 billion annually or around £20 per person per year.
Renewed interest in multivitamins was sparked by a new paper in Nature Medicine Journal which explored whether regular multivitamin use could help with ageing using data collection from the COSMOS trial – COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study. Yes you read correctly - cocoa!
The original COSMOS trial was a large study of over 21000 people given either cocoa extract (not Toblerone); high in flavonols which are meant to be anti-inflammatory, or multivitamins; meant to reduce deficiencies and promote general health, or placebo, with the goal to find out whether these actually do anything or not. In fact multivitamin use demonstrated several favourable outcomes in older adults for brain function and slowing cognitive decline and cancer, while flavonols showed some reduction in cardiovascular disease.
The new COSMOS study then looked at the effect of multivitamins on biological ageing. Of the original COSMOS cohort, 998 participants were selected who had provided blood samples at trial entry and years 1 and 2, with around half using daily multivitamins and half coca extract, then compared against those taking placebo.
The researchers found that cocoa had no effect, while the multivitamin group showed a small but statistically significant reduction in ageing. Good news but slightly disappointing for those of us struggling to eat the bitter dry high cocoa content dark chocolate!!
I am sure more research is needed to focus on exactly what is happening in the body and no matter how many supplements someone takes, they cannot substitute for a good diet, regular and progressive exercise and good sleep.