The benefits of taking vitamin B and folic acid supplements are modest, but encouraging, as confirmed in a test where older adults who took them for two years showed slightly greater improvements in memory tests that those who did not consume the same.
“Vitamins may have an important role in promoting healthy ageing and mental wellbeing, as well as sustaining good cognitive functioning for longer on a community-wide scale,” said author Janine Walker, a researcher at Australian National University, of the study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The researchers asked more than 700 people aged 60 to 74 years to take a daily dose of folic acid and vitamin B12, or placebo pills that resembled the vitamins. The vitamin dose included 400 micrograms of folic acid and 100 micrograms of vitamin B12, and participants didn’t know which they were assigned to take.
After 12 months, there seemed to be no difference between the groups in how well people scored on mental tests, including memory, attention and speed.
But after two years, those who took the vitamins showed more, if modest, improvement in their scores on the memory tasks.
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