Cognitive skills, such as thinking, memory and attention are indispensable for everyday life, but multiple disorders can set in as one’s age progresses. The decline of these skills is one of the most serious problems of ageing, but if you take care of your health, a lot can be done to prevent or decelerate the decline.  

B vitamins play an important role in energy production and significantly contribute to proper cognitive function, so several studies examined the exact connection between them. A large-scale meta-analysis published in March 2022 examined the effectiveness of B vitamins by analyzing the results of 95 studies.  

The main findings about the connection between B vitamins and cognitive skills:  

• Vitamin B supplementation improved cognitive skills by 14% according to a specific test. The decline of cognitive skills was measurable in the control group, which implies that B vitamins slow down the process. 

• In intervention trials lasting more than 1 year,  vitamin B supplementation reduced the decline of cognitive skills by 15% in patients with no dementia.  

• The risk of dementia increased by 75% in patients with low folate levels and by 100% in patients with high homocysteine levels (which can be reduced by multiple types of vitamin B).  

• High folate intake decreased The risk of dementia by 39% among patients over 50. 

Supplementing  vitamin B, especially folate can help preserve cognitive skills in the long run and reduce the risk of one of the most serious illnesses, dementia.