Daily multivitamin may support healthy aging, suggests preliminary study

• A new study suggests that older adults taking a daily multivitamin for 3 years reported significantly better functional health, including reductions in symptom burden and improvements in overall physical functioning.
• These functional health benefits may support daily activities and everyday independence, such as walking, climbing stairs, dressing, bathing, and completing household chores.
• Although cocoa extract supplementation did not significantly improve functional health, it was associated with benefits in participants with congestive heart failure.
• The findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and, as such, are preliminary. Additionally, the researchers emphasize that multivitamins are not a substitute for a healthy diet and regular exercise.

Multivitamin supplementation describes a daily vitamin and mineral supplement that can help fill nutritional gaps in the diet. In older adults, this may be helpful because aging can make it harder for the body to absorb or get enough nutrients from food.

Good nutrition supports general well-being and cardiovascular function, including how well the heart and blood vessels work, supplying oxygen and nutrients throughout the body. However, there is limited evidence that multivitamins directly improve heart health or prevent cardiovascular disease in healthy older adults.

The COSMOS trial was a large, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial designed to test whether taking either a commercially available daily multivitamin (Centrum Silver), or a daily cocoa flavanol supplement could reduce the risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other age-related conditions in older adults.

Now, a secondary analysis of the COSMOS trial suggests that daily multivitamin-mineral supplementation modestly improved cardiovascular-related functional health in older adults over a 3-year period.

The study, presented at NUTRITION 2026, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, found that adults aged 60 years and older who took a daily multivitamin reported better functional health than those who received a placebo.

The improvements included measures of symptom burden and physical functioning, suggesting multivitamins may help preserve day-to-day independence as people age.

However, because the findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, they should be considered preliminary.