Pilar Guallar Castillón
Professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at the Autonomous University of Madrid
Stop spending your money on multivitamins. That is the most rational and straightforward conclusion from the recent article published in Nature Medicine. The paper is a complementary analysis to the COSMOS clinical trial.
The COSMOS clinical trial was conducted in the United States with 21,442 participants, most of whom were white and highly educated. Its aim was to evaluate the effect of the daily consumption of Centrum, a pill containing more than 29 vitamins and minerals (100 % of the Recommended Daily Intake), compared with placebo. Participants who took Centrum had a higher risk of gastrointestinal bleeding as a side effect. However, Centrum consumption did not improve overall mortality, nor did it reduce the incidence of acute myocardial infarction, stroke, or cardiovascular death. It also showed no benefit for cancer incidence (the primary outcome of the clinical trial) or for cancer mortality.
The rationale for the article published in Nature Medicine to use epigenetic aging clocks is that these markers are strongly associated with the main causes of mortality and morbidity. In a highly selected sample, the authors observed that Centrum consumption produced a small protective effect on these aging markers. However, the clinical relevance of these findings remains unknown, especially given that the COSMOS trial itself found no effect of Centrum consumption on the main causes of mortality and morbidity.
My personal advice is to stop taking multivitamins, whether in pills or gummies. Instead, follow a healthy, varied diet rich in fruits and vegetables—the main natural sources of vitamins and minerals—and do not spend your money on nutritional supplements. There are enormous commercial interests behind their consumption and a lack of solid clinical evidence supporting their benefits.
The study also shows no effects of cocoa supplementation. So you can eat chocolate if it gives you pleasure (and if you are not overweight or obese), but taking cocoa-based nutritional supplements does not make much sense either.
Save your money on supplements. Don’t distract yourself by taking pills thinking that this will “protect” you. Instead, focus on eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and low in ultra-processed foods. Your health, and your wallet, will thank you.