Multitudes of stories have been surfacing in the social media, and from more authoritative sources, about slowing biological aging. Most involve sunscreen and summer exposure. But some, like the today’s topic, involve more-clinical approaches…
That’s news all of us older women want to hear. You can never get enough ‘outward youth’. But until now most of the treatments for aging skin have relied on applying substances such s collagen, retinol and hyaluronic acid to the outside of your body. We knew that certain foods can benefit skin con-dition. But nothing ‘big’ had yet surfaced as a way to salve your skin from the inside out.
Deceptively simple…
Now, researchers from Mass General Brigham (MGB) have discovered that simply taking a common one-a-day multivitamin could slow the outward signs of aging by as much as 2 months per year.
I’ve been taking a daily multivitamin for many years, now. But I never thought it would do anything special for my skin. I was focused on what it would do for my metabolism, my eyesight and my brain. In those departments, I credit my multi some success. But the researchers discovered that the effects run far more than ‘skin deep’…
But I never thought of skin and hair benefits from a multivitamin until I read the MGB study report.
What they did
The team set out to investigate the suspected connection between multivitamin supplements and cocoa flavonoids with physical signs of aging, an abstract of the study report sets the scene…
The researchers chose 918 subjects with an average age of 70, and randomly assigned each to one of four groups: daily cocoa extract and multivitamin; daily cocoa extract and placebo; placebo and multivitamin; or placebo only.
The team compared changes in five separate epigenetic clocks [DNA markers] associated with aging at the beginning of the study, after one year, and again after two years.
What they found
Compared with participants who received only placebos, those taking a multivitamin showed slower biological aging across all five measurements. Two of the clocks, which are strongly associated with mortality risk, showed statistically significant slowing.
Overall, the findings suggested that multivitamin use reduced biological aging by about four months during the two-year period. The strongest effects appeared in participants whose biological age was already ahead of their chronological age when the trial began.
The takeaway
Researchers say more work is needed to understand how slowing biological aging may influence long-term health outcomes. The COSMOS team plans to continue studying whether the effects of daily multivitamin use could help explain previous findings connected to improved cognition and lower risks of cancer and cataracts.
My take
Well! Hurray for me! I’ve been doing the right thing for my skin – and my whole system – all along. And I didn’t even know it!
Faithful followers will recall that I’ve posted reports in this space – from equally-reliable learned institutions – claiming taking a daily multivitamin does nothing for one’s health and well-being. I guess it’s time for the researchers who came up with those findings to go back and take a second look!
~ Maggie J.