Daily Multivitamins Slow Aging, Clinical Trial Finds

TUESDAY, March 10, 2026 (HealthDay News) — The health boost from daily multivitamins might actually extend to how quickly a person ages, a new study says.

Researchers found slower “wear and tear” biological aging among seniors after two years on a multivitamin, researchers reported March 9 in the journal Nature Medicine. 

Those seniors who began the study with accelerated aging saw even greater benefits, researchers said.

“There is a lot of interest today in identifying ways to not just live longer, but to live better,” said senior researcher Howard Sesso, associate director of preventive medicine at Mass General Brigham in Boston.

“It was exciting to see benefits of a multivitamin linked with markers of biological aging,” he said in a news release. “This study opens the door to learning more about accessible, safe interventions that contribute to healthier, higher-quality aging.”

Tests of biological aging look at the wear and tear of daily life on a person’s genetics. Based on this, people might be either younger or older than their actual calendar age would reflect.

For the new study, researchers recruited 958 people with an average age of 70, and placed them in one of five groups.

One group took a cocoa extract and multivitamin daily; another, a cocoa extract and a placebo; the third, a multivitamin and placebo; and the fourth, two placebos.

During the two-year trial, researchers repeatedly analyzed people’s biological age using five different methods.

People in the multivitamin group demonstrated slowing in all five biological “clocks,” with changes equating to about four months less aging during the two years.

Folks who were biologically older than their actual age at the start benefitted the most, results showed.

“We plan to do follow-up research to determine if the slowing of biological aging — observed through these five (biological) clocks, and additional or new ones — persists after the trial ends,” researcher Dr. Yanbin Dong said in a news release. He’s director of the Georgia Prevention Institute in the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

More research is needed to explain why multivitamins would slow aging, researchers said.

“A lot of people take a multivitamin without necessarily knowing any benefits from taking it, so the more we can learn about its potential health benefits, the better,” Sesso said.

More information

Johns Hopkins Medicine has more on multivitamins.

SOURCE: Mass General Brigham, news release, March 9, 2026