Alongside my morning yogurt and cereal, I’m taking an increasing number of supplements. The long brown ones contain lion’s mane, a mushroom supposedly good for anxiety. The tiny round one is vitamin D – in cloudy London I feel eternally deficient without this. The chewy one? A multivitamin. The powder is creatine, which my friend swears by for keeping brain fog at bay. Then there’s collagen, best known as a protein vital to youthful-looking skin, because, well, we all live in hope.
Like a poor man’s Bryan Johnson, I’m throwing everything at the wall in the vain hope that something will keep my brain (and my skin) feeling fresh. But as someone who takes great stock in living life according to scientific evidence, it’s time for a rethink. Alongside my best efforts to eat a good diet and exercise consistently, are there any brain-boosting supplements really worth taking?
To find out, I wrote to 10 of the world’s experts – mostly neuroscientists, pharmacologists and nutritionists – who have recently published prominent reviews or clinical trials on this very matter. I asked them all the same question: “What, if any, supplement would you recommend for improving either brain health or cognition – and why?”
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Some declined to comment, restricted by university or government policies. But while there was no overall consensus, several flagged one particular supplement: the humble multivitamin.
Multivitamins’ multi-benefits
“The vast majority of the dietary supplements on the market claiming to have brain benefits have never been tested for efficacy in rigorous randomised clinical trials,” says , chief of preventative medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts. “A key exception is a comprehensive multivitamin.”
Manson and her colleagues have tested this thoroughly. In three separate placebo-controlled trials, they examined whether a daily multivitamin could affect cognition and memory in around 5000 adults aged 60 and over. were published last year. “Multivitamins showed consistent and highly significant benefits for slowing age-related memory loss and global cognitive decline,” says Manson. “The benefits translated into slowing cognitive ageing by more than 50 per cent overall”.
The upsides don’t stop at cognition either. Studies show that multivitamins reduce the risk of several age-related chronic diseases, such as and , and may even slow biological aging, too.
At an in New Orleans, Louisiana, last month, Manson presented research showing multivitamins slowed biological ageing by between 10 and 20 per cent in people who took them daily over two years. This equated to about four months of ageing that seemed to be held at bay, although more research needs to be done to replicate these findings.
When I posed my supplements question, at the University of Reading, UK, who specialises in nutrition and cognitive function, recommended taking four separate ones: DHA (an omega-3 lipid found in algae or fish, but not plants), choline, B vitamins and flavonoids – particularly those that increase blood flow to the brain, such as cocoa flavanols. It isn’t common to get all of these in a single multivitamin, but many include the first three.
Is it really necessary?
Both Spencer and , director of ageing research at King’s College London, say that supplements focusing on just one compound, in contrast to multivitamins, are unlikely to make a difference to brain health.
Siow says that multivitamins have the benefit of resembling food components in the normal diet, which made me wonder whether a good diet can replace the need for a multivitamin, or if multivitamins are providing something we can’t get from diet alone. He told me that multivitamins contain not just vitamins, but other micronutrients and lipids that may act synergistically in combination and that may be difficult to get in some diets, especially in older people, whose bodies are less efficient at absorbing some vitamins.
While Manson acknowledges that those who gain most from taking multivitamins are people with poorer diets, her team’s trials found that even if you have a healthy diet you can benefit to some extent. “It appears that, especially in older adults, multivitamins may be a complementary strategy to promote better health,” she says. The takeaway? A good diet is essential, but a multivitamin may add an extra layer of protection.
What about creatine and collagen?
One researcher did throw in another contender: creatine. While it’s a well-known dietary supplement among gym-goers to improve muscle mass and strength, evidence has been building that it can also help the brain. “There are over 10 studies to show that if you supplement with creatine, you increase the amount of creatine in the brain,” says , a sports nutritionist at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada.
This is useful because while our brain can synthesise its own creatine, which it uses as a source of energy, providing it with an additional supply of creatine appears to be beneficial when the brain is stressed and requires more energy, says Forbes. He notes that creatine has been shown to improve cognitive function , help people score higher on and may aid . In addition, early evidence is showing it may have promise for treating signs of depression.
So for now, I’m reconsidering my breakfast routine. I’ll keep the multivitamin and the creatine, but there isn’t enough evidence yet for me to keep spending money on lion’s mane.
As for collagen, I may return to it later, and not just for vanity’s sake. Research suggests that as skin ages, more of its cells enter a zombie-like state called senescence. These cells build up and start spewing out chemicals that cause inflammation around the body. Given inflammation is associated with so many health conditions, an early hypothesis is that skin ageing, in part through loss of collagen, may be a driver of whole-body and brain aging.
A review in 2022 found that both oral and topical collagen supplements , although nobody’s yet looked at whether they affect senescent cells. Too early to be taking them, then, to prevent diseases of ageing.
But I look forward to hearing the results of research by Cláudia Cavadas at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. She’s planning on giving drugs that clear up senescent cells to animals with aged skin to see if they affect brain health. Perhaps future supplements won’t only help us feel more youthful, but look it too.
