Data published in Nature Medicine indicated that a daily multivitamin-mineral (MVM) was associated with statistically significant aging reductions in two epigenetic clocks that are predictive of mortality.
The changes equated to about four months less biological aging over the course of two years, reported scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Augusta University and the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute (San Francisco).
“We provide evidence from a large-scale and long-term RCT that a daily MVM is a safe, readily accessible and low-cost intervention that may slow epigenetic aging measured by PhenoAge and GrimAge among older adults, and especially among those with accelerated biological aging at baseline,” they wrote.
“COSMOS is an important prevention trial designed to evaluate whether the MVM intervention prevents, delays or alleviates aging, and additional trials are needed to confirm these findings and determine the role of MVM in extending healthy aging not only among older adults but also across the lifespan.”
Epigenetic clocks estimate biological aging based on tiny changes in specific sites in DNA that regulate gene expression (known as DNA methylation) and change naturally as people get older, helping track mortality and the pace of aging.
COSMOS
The large-scale COSMOS study has previously shown that a daily MVM may slow cognitive decline. The brand of multivitamin sused in the studies was Centrum Silver (Pfizer Consumer Healthcare, now Haleon).
The same research team recently reported that the cocoa extract used in COSMOS was also associated with some benefits for the aging brains. Cocoa consumption was linked to an improved cognition in adults over the age of 60 with habitually poorer diets but had no overall brain benefits in those with healthier dietary patterns.
The new data published in Nature Medicine did not find any impact on the cocoa extract on epigenetic aging measurements.
Commenting independently on the study’s findings, Dr. Gabriele Civiletto, associate principal scientist, dietary supplements, dsm-firmenich, told NutraIngredients: “The multivitamin intervention highlights how sustained, multi-ingredient nutritional strategies may shape aging trajectories, particularly in individuals with greater unmet needs.
“These observations are consistent with findings from large nutrition studies such as DO-HEALTH, where combined daily supplementation with life’s OMEGA 60 (algae-based omega-3) and Quali-D (vitamin D3) supported the value of a multi nutrient, systems based approach to healthy aging.”
Study details
The prespecified ancillary study assessed the effects of two years of MVM (Centrum Silver) and cocoa extract (500 mg cocoa flavanols per day, including 80 mg epicatechin) on five measures of biological aging. Data from 958 people (482 women and 476 men) with a mean age of 70 were included in the analysis.
Data showed that, compared with placebo, the daily multivitamin was associated with a modest reduction in the rate of increase of second-generation epigenetic clocks, namely PhenoAge (-0. 214 years) and GrimAge (-0.113 years). A stronger effect was observed on GrimAge for people with accelerated biological aging at the start of the study, the researchers reported.
“There is a lot of interest today in identifying ways to not just live longer, but to live better,” said Howard Sesso, ScD, MPH, associate director of the Division of Preventive Medicine in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine and senior author on the study, in a press release. “It was exciting to see the benefits of a multivitamin linked with markers of biological aging. This study opens the door to learning more about accessible, safe interventions that contribute to healthier, higher-quality aging.
“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 added. “Within COSMOS, we are fortunate and excited to build upon a rich resource of biomarker data to test how two interventions may improve biological aging and reduce age-related clinical outcomes.”
What would three years of data show?
David Weinkove, professor at Durham University in England and chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing, told NutraIngredients that he would expect to see accelerated aging in this older age group, and commended the sample size of over 900 individuals.
“But there is only a small effect of the intervention on some clocks and not others,” he noted. “Epigenetic clocks are trained on chronological age—which doesn’t accelerate with age—so they probably not great at differentiating between small numbers of years at a high age. They have about and +/- 3 years correlation so 2 years could be challenging to differentiate. Maybe the two clocks where they saw a difference are better or maybe in fact the effect on aging is pretty small, and it can’t be seen. My gut feeling is that three years would be much better.”
Source: Nature Medicine, 2026. doi: 10.1038/s41591-026-04239-3. “Effects of daily multivitamin–multimineral and cocoa extract supplementation on epigenetic aging clocks in the COSMOS randomized clinical trial”. Authors: S. Li, et al.
