Who knew all those rumours about multivitamins were true? If your doctor or naturopath has ever recommended you taking a multivitamin, you should give it some serious consideration. The results of a recent research study confirm that older women definitely benefit from taking a multivitamin containing a mineral supplement and several herbal ingredients daily.

What did this Multivitamin study involve?

Helen Macpherson of the Centre for Human Psychopharmacology at Swinburne University in Melbourne, who led the research team behind this study, explained that 56 women participated in their trial. These participants received either a multivitamin or placebo daily for a total of 16 weeks. Following those 16 weeks, the researchers measured the brain activity of each woman. The study results convinced researchers that those women who received a multivitamin had a considerable increase in brain function and cognition.

The connection between Multivitamin and Anti-Aging

Macpherson and her team admitted that the multivitamin used in the study contained a great number of ingredients. Therefore, it is not easy to determine which ingredient or mixture of ingredients produced the increases in brain activity. Additionally, the researchers pointed out that their results did not indicate any effect of the multivitamin on inflammation or oxidative stress—the two major causes of aging.

Can Multivitamins prevent dementia?

Another possible benefit of multivitamins that concerns many middle-aged to older people, is the prevention of degenerative diseases of the brain, such as Alzheimer Disease. The multivitamin studied by Macpherson and her team did in fact decrease levels of the amino acid, homocysteine, which has been linked to the development of dementia.

Still not sold on Multivitamins?

Mr Vitamins understands that not everyone is committed to taking a vitamin every day. But, you may be interested to know that Bacopa monniera and Ginkgo biloba were among the herbs included in the multivitamin from the study. Bacopa monniera has been linked to enhancing memory while Ginkgo biloba offers a number of health benefits including improved blood flow to your brain. As always, Mr Vitamins is here for all your questions, concerns, multivitamin, and natural supplement needs. All you have to do is ‘Ask a Naturopath’!

Mr Vitamins references and further research:

'Neurocognitive effects of multivitamin supplementation on steady state visually evoked potential (SSVE) measure of brain activity in elderly women' Helen Macpherson, Richard Silberstein, Angrew Pipingas