This transcript has been clearly edited.
This is Dr. Joan Manson, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. I would like to talk about recent research published at the 2025 American Heart Association Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle and Cardio-Metabolism Health Science Session It took place in New Orleans earlier this month. This research, Cocoa Supplement Multivitamin Results Study (COSMOS)addressed whether daily multivitamin supplementation in a randomized clinical trial setting could slow biological aging as measured by DNA methylation in epigenetic clocks.
As you know, there are few interventions in randomized trials aimed at slowing biological aging. We also know that many people have defects in one or more micronutrients and that healthy nutrition is extremely important for optimal health and prevention of chronic diseases.
In previous randomized trials, Multivitamin It shows benefits to reduce the risk of several chronic diseases. For example, both Physician Health Research II and 2022 US Preventive Services Task Force Review Multivitamin supplementation reported reduced total cancer invasion. Furthermore, multivitamins were also associated with a Reduced risk of cataracts Physician Health Study II shows that age-related amnesia is significantly slower and cognitive decline for three separate placebo control substances. Cosmos Trial.
Therefore, as observed in these randomized trials, it makes sense to determine whether slowing biological aging is responsible for this reduced risk of chronic disease in response to multivitamin supplementation or is a contributing factor for mechanisms.
The COSMOS exam included men and women in the elderly (ages over 60 years old). In this study, the average age was 70.2 years. I would like to acknowledge that I am a collaborator in this study. Approximately 950 participants who received blood tests at baseline were randomly selected at 1 and 2 years of follow-up. Biological aging was evaluated using five different epigenetic clocks, two of which were first generation, two were second generation, and one was Dunedinpace.
All five epigenetic clocks had signals due to slower aging of multivitamins compared to placebo arms. For two second generation clocks (pcgrimage and pcphenoage), there is a significant slowdown in biological aging of multivitamin arms compared to placebo arms, and on average about 10%-20% slow aging Through daily multivitamin use over two years of intervention. This corresponds to about four months of aging that appears to be avoided or prevented. Among participants who accelerated aging at baseline, the reported benefits were even greater.
Now we clearly need a replica of these findings Multivitamin And other dietary supplements are not a substitute for a healthy diet or a healthy lifestyle. However, these findings are promising and suggest that the Guidelines Committee hopes to consider the results of these randomized trials and mechanistic studies to determine whether recommendations should be made for the use of multivitamins (complete healthy diet and lifestyle) in the prevention of chronic diseases of aging.
