Vitamin-mineral supplements and cognition among adults aged 65 and older: multiple cross-sectional population-based...

Many people consume vitamin-mineral supplements (VMS), to prevent cognitive decline or enhance cognition. We assessed the association between VMS intake and cognition.

Data from three follow-ups of the population-based CoLaus|PsyColaus cohort. Participants aged ≥ 65 years were included and categorized as VMS consumers or non-consumers. Cognitive tests included the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Stroop colour test, the CERAD praxis items, lexical and semantic fluency tasks, and the Grober and Buschke episodic memory test.

There were 925 (64.5% women), 836 (41.1%), and 516 (29.4%) participants from the first (2009-2013), second (2014-2018) and third (2019-2021) follow-ups, respectively. After multivariable adjustment, no significant differences were found between VMS non-consumers and consumers regarding almost all cognitive tests. The multivariable-adjusted mean ± SEM of MMSE for VMS non-consumers vs. consumers were 29.27 ± 0.06 vs. 29.28 ± 0.09, 29.21 ± 0.06 vs. 29.28 ± 0.07 and 29.32 ± 0.08 vs. 29.21 ± 0.09 for the first, second, and third follow-ups, all p > 0.05. The exceptions were Stroop C, where non-consumers had a statistically better but clinically irrelevant performance than consumers at the third follow-up: effect size 0.30 (0.01; 0.58) p = 0.042 and the Grober and Buschke test in the first follow-up, where VMS consumers scored better than non-consumers in free recall: 9.11 ± 0.15 vs. 8.55 ± 0.10 (p = 0.003), with opposite findings in cued recall: 5.99 ± 0.14 vs. 6.48 ± 0.09 (p = 0.004).

We found no clinically significant association between VMS use and cognitive performance.