Derek Burnett
Derek Burnett is a Contributing Writer at Bottom Line Personal, where he writes frequently on health and wellness. He is also a contributing editor with Reader’s Digest magazine.
You’ve probably heard that certain vitamins are important for brain health, and you may have read that supplementing with key vitamins is a great way to boost your memory and other cognitive functions. While it’s certainly true that our brains require vitamins to work, the question of supplementing with “memory vitamins” to get a “brain-boost” is a bit more complicated.
We talk about them all the time…vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin K…but what exactly is a vitamin, and how is it different from other nutrients? All vitamins are organic compounds, meaning they contain carbon. This is what sets them apart from “minerals” such as iron or copper. To maintain our health, we must consume them in small quantities, which sets them apart from the macronutrients protein, carbohydrates, and fats. And we must obtain them through food, since our bodies can’t produce them by themselves. The 13 recognized vitamins are…
Looking at the above list, you may wonder, “Which vitamins are most important for my brain health?” At the risk of sounding flippant, the best answer is, “All of them.” The reason is that our brains, like our hearts and the rest of our bodies, function at their best when we eat a wholesome, varied diet that covers all the bases and delivers all 13 vitamins.
Yet a few vitamins do deserve special attention for the role they play in brain function. As you’ll see, that doesn’t mean you should rush to the vitamin aisle and stock up on them, but they are worth discussing in the context of brain health.
This group of vitamins plays a crucial role in the proper functioning of neurotransmitters in the brain. And researchers have a particular interest in vitamins B6 and B12 because of their perceived effect on an amino acid called homocysteine, which exists in higher quantities in the brains of people with vascular dementia. Homocysteine appears to accumulate in the brains of people suffering from deficiencies of these B vitamins, and low levels of B12 have been linked to cognitive impairment and lower brain volume.
And yet in trials, supplementing with B vitamins has not proved a reliable strategy for staving off cognitive decline, even when it causes homocysteine levels to go down. This apparent contradiction is still being worked out by researchers. It may be that B12 supplementation is only effective in people of a certain genetic makeup or in those with unusually high homocysteine levels. Or effective supplementation may depend on achieving a ratio of B12 to folate or to omega-3 fatty acid levels.
For now, the best that can be said is that you should avoid B-vitamin deficiency. This is especially true for older adults, since the aging gastrointestinal tract often has greater difficulty absorbing these vitamins from food. People on stomach-acid-blocking medications are particularly at risk of deficiency. The synthetic forms of B vitamins in pills and fortified foods don’t require stomach acid to be processed, so are a good idea for people over 50.
Just a few years ago, vitamin D was all the rage, touted as something of a miracle drug effective against a host of ailments and conditions. Not all of that hype has stood up to close scrutiny, and the message regarding vitamin D and dementia has generally shifted to, “Avoid deficiency,” rather than, “Pile on as much vitamin D as possible.”
A large 2022 study found that severe vitamin D deficiency was linked to significantly higher risk of dementia, and a smaller study just a few months later showed that extra vitamin D lowered dementia risk by 40%. But the second piece of research was an observational study which could not show cause and effect, and a clinical trial comparing different supplementing dosages shows no difference in cognition between those taking the standard daily dosage and those more than doubling it.
It’s certainly clear, though, that vitamin D deficiency should be avoided. Each day, you should be getting at least 600 IUD (15 micrograms) if you’re under age 70, and 800 IUD (20 micrograms) if you’re 70 or older.
Vitamin E is an antioxidant that some research suggests could help to prevent or even treat Alzheimer’s disease. However, there are plenty of reasons why taking vitamin E supplements is probably a bad idea. First, despite the promise suggested by animal research, actual trials have not demonstrated its effectiveness for reducing Alzheimer’s risk in healthy adults. There is some research showing that supplementation has a modest benefit to those already suffering from Alzheimer’s, but this doesn’t translate to using vitamin E supplements as a preventive measure. Importantly, vitamin E is not a vitamin you should be getting too much of, since it’s been linked to hemorrhagic stroke and increased risk of prostate cancer. Rather than piling it on via supplementing, get your vitamin E from foods such as leafy green vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, especially since this vitamin requires fats to be absorbed, and most people consume some form of fats along with those foods.
Many Americans take multivitamins to “cover the bases” of vitamins they might be missing in their diets. While this makes good logical sense, in reality there’s little research suggesting that this is effective. It’s not clear why, but the body appears to do a much better job absorbing vitamins that are taken in through food than those consumed in pill form. That’s why it’s so important to eat a varied diet heavy in fruits and vegetables, such as the Mediterranean eating pattern.
If you’re concerned about your cognition and your vitamin intake, the best answer is to focus on eating better. Given the state of the research, the only “brain vitamins” it makes sense to take as supplements are vitamin D (but only if you aren’t getting your full daily dosage through your diet) and B vitamins (but only if you’re over 50 or have stomach-acid issues).
