You’re not the only one who has ever wondered if your daily vitamins are really doing anything. A lot of my patients ask me, “Are supplements really worth it, or is it just expensive pee?”

What the new science says

New information from more than 15,000 adults shows that getting more vitamins may slow down biological aging. Vitamin C is the vitamin that keeps coming up the most. That doesn’t mean vitamins are magic pills that stop aging, but they can have a real, measurable effect on how quickly your body ages on the inside

As a doctor who cares about living a long time, hormone health, weight loss, and disease prevention, I see supplements as just one tool in a much bigger toolbox. This article will help you understand what the science really says, how vitamins might change your “biological age,” and how to use supplements safely and wisely.

Age in Biology vs. Age on Your Birthday

Most of us know how old we are in years, but that number doesn’t tell the whole story. Two 55-year-olds can look and feel very different. One might be running 5Ks, while the other might be tired and have a lot of chronic conditions.

That’s where biological age comes in. Biological age is a way to guess how “old” your body functions based on lab results, organ function, and other health markers, not just counting birthdays. Researchers use different mathematical models such as KDM-BA (Klemera-Doubal Method Biological Age) and PhenoAge that are popular blood-chemistry-based algorithms used to estimate biological age or “biological age acceleration,” to figure out if your body is aging faster, slower, or about the same as your chronological age.

1. You are getting older more slowly if your biological age is lower than your calendar age.
2.  If it’s higher, your body is more stressed and worn out than it should be.
   The goal of longevity medicine is to lower biological age, not just add years to life but also life to years. That is, increasing healthspan or your healthy years.

A New Study: Vitamins and Aging Slower

A recent study that used data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) looked at 15,050 adults and how much of 11 different vitamins they took. After that, the researchers looked at three different ways to measure biological age and compared them to vitamin intake.

This is what they found:

• Individuals who ingested greater quantities of a vitamin blend exhibited reduced biological age acceleration, indicating a slower aging process in their bodies.
• This connection was present in several different biological age formulas and stayed the same even after taking into account things like health and lifestyle. 
• The link was especially strong in men and in people who were at risk for certain health problems, like drinking too much alcohol. 

This was an association study, not a randomized trial, so it’s very important to know that. That means we can’t say that vitamins made people age more slowly. People who eat more foods high in vitamins or take supplements may also have other healthy habits, like exercising more or sleeping better. 

Still, even after taking a lot of these things into account, the link between vitamins and aging stayed. 

Vitamin C: The Best Player

One particularly interesting finding from this study is that vitamin C was the most protective vitamin across all of the biological age measurements. Vitamin C was always the most important vitamin, but B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), B9 (folate), B12, (methylcobalamin best form) and vitamin E (mixed tocopherols best form) also helped.

Vitamin C:

• Is a powerful antioxidant that helps get rid of free radicals and lower oxidative stress, which is a cause of cell aging.
• Helps make collagen for skin, joints, blood vessels, and connective tissue.
• Helps the immune system and the body’s response to stress.
• Helps make neurotransmitters, which can affect mood and brain health.

Additional studies corroborate the significance of sufficient vitamin C levels. A comprehensive study of U.S. adults revealed an increased risk at both very low and very high levels, with the lowest risk observed within a healthy intermediate range. That means we want enough, not mega doses. The message is not “take a lot of vitamin C and you’ll live forever.” The message is that getting enough vitamin C, often with other vitamins, seems to be an important part of healthy aging.

Multivitamins Helpful, or Hype?

You might be wondering if a basic multivitamin does anything that can be measured. Until recently, the evidence was mixed and not very convincing. But more recent, better-designed trials are helping us see things more clearly, especially when it comes to brain health.

In the extensive COSMOS trial and its cognitive sub-studies, older adults who consumed a daily multivitamin-mineral supplement exhibited superior global cognition and memory relative to those receiving a placebo. The multivitamin group exhibited cognitive performance equivalent to individuals approximately two years “younger” in cognitive age across multiple analyses.

This does not mean that taking a multivitamin will make dementia go away. But it does mean that filling in small nutrient gaps can slow down the decline in brain function that comes with age. When we look at the NHANES biological aging data along with this, we see a common theme: micronutrient sufficiency may not be very important, but it is!

Not Magic Bullets

Supplements are not a substitute for diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and (when appropriate) hormone optimization; they are additions.

• The best ways to lower your biological age are still to deal with insulin resistance, inflammation, blood pressure, body composition, sleep, toxin avoidance and movement.
• Vitamins and minerals help the body’s biochemistry work by making energy, collagen, DNA, brain function, and protecting against free radicals.

In my opinion, the best way to use supplements is to fix gaps and help systems that are already working well, not to make up for a bad lifestyle.

How This Relates to Hormones, Weight, and Living Longer

In my work, I focus on three main areas: hormone balance, weight and metabolic health, and preventive care. This is where vitamins fit in:

• Hormone therapy and supplements work on pathways that cross each other. Hormones can change the amount of muscle, bone density, brain function, and blood vessel health. Vitamins and minerals are needed for hormone production, energy, metabolism, collagen production, neurotransmitter production, mitochondrial energy, and detoxification pathways.
• The level of micronutrients in your body affects your energy, cravings, and metabolism and overall health. Not getting enough of certain nutrients or having too much of them can make you more tired, slow down your recovery, make it harder to sleep, and make you crave unhealthy foods. All of these things can make it harder to lose weight and speed up the aging process.
• Biological age is an outcome of the system. When we work on improving insulin sensitivity, body composition, hormone balance, and micronutrient levels all at once, we often see lower blood pressure, lower lipids, lower inflammation markers, and better overall resilience. That is what finally shows up as a “younger” biological age on advanced testing.

I don’t think of vitamins as “extras.” For a lot of patients, especially those with modern, busy, and imperfect diets, they are often a practical need.

A good plan

Eat food first and then take smart supplements. 

While I like to measure to determine if someone has deficiencies, nutritional surveys, and my experience in decades of practice analyzing nutrients in people’s diets, measuring levels and researching the literature, most people benefit from: 

• A high quality multivitamin and mineral formula
  • Gives you essential vitamins and minerals as a basic level of safety
  • Look for the forms. If it just says Vitamin C, Folic Acid, B12 and does not list the exact type such as ascorbic acid, methyl folate, methylcobalamine, it is probably not a good quality.
• Omega 3 Fish oil EPA/DHA
  • Is good for your brain and heart health.
  • Count the amount of EPA and DHA that are the active ingredients. Many companies will say 1,000 mg of fish oil yet most are marine lipids and the amount of EPA and DHA is about 300. 
  • The natural triglyceride form is most readily absorbed
• Vitamin D and K 
  • Good for your bones, immune system, and heart health.
  • Get Vitamin D3 as cholecalciferol and Vitamin K2 as MK7 menaquinone
• Buy direct from the manufacturer or authorized distributor
  • Assures authentic product that is stored and shipped properly and is not expired.
  • Many online companies have counterfeits, so buyer beware
  • Avoid issues by signing up for Supplement Savvy, a complimentary no obligation series of 5 emails that gives you protocols for common issues and access to high quality supplements direct from the manufacturer or authorized distributor at a discount 
• Test Don’t Guess
  • There are now many direct to consumer labs
  • Choose quality companies such as Life Extension, Quest Labs or Function Health
  • Add nutrients based on tests
• Get a functional medicine evaluation to determine your needs
  • Supplements to support different health conditions
  • Balance hormones
  • Lose weight
  • Build muscle
  • Longevity protocols

The Bottom Line

The new study on vitamin intake and biological aging backs up what a lot of us in preventive and anti-aging medicine have thought for a long time: micronutrients are important. Based on data from a lot of people, people who eat more vitamins, especially vitamin C and some B vitamins, tend to age more slowly. Randomized trials of multivitamins now indicate that we can decelerate the process of cognitive aging in older adults.

 Supplements aren’t magic. You still need to eat whole, nutrient dense foods, move, sleep, deal with stress, avoid and remove toxins and, when necessary, carefully manage hormone therapy. But if you use them correctly, they can help you stay healthy for a long time by supporting the biochemical foundations of health.

FAQs

Does taking vitamin C improve longevity?

Vitamin C has been extensively studied by many, but one particular study that was published in Life Extension suggests that high vitamin C intake levels are linked to longer telomeres, lower oxidative stress levels which can lead to  improved longevity. 

References:1–7

1. Zhang X, Xu Y, Wang X, Chen M, Xiong J, Cheng G. Association between vitamin intake and biological aging: evidence from NHANES 2007–2018. J Nutr Health Aging. 2026;30(2):100776. doi:10.1016/j.jnha.2026.100776
2. Zhang X, Xu Y, Wang X, Chen M, Xiong J, Cheng G. Association between vitamin intake and biological aging: evidence from NHANES 2007–2018. J Nutr Health Aging. 2026;30(2):100776. doi:10.1016/j.jnha.2026.100776
3. Xu C, Yi T, Tan S, et al. Association of Oral or Intravenous Vitamin C Supplementation with Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2023;15(8):1848. doi:10.3390/nu15081848
4. Tian T, Shao J, Shen Z, et al. Association of serum vitamin C with all-cause and cause-specific death: Data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 2003-2006). Nutrition. 2022;101:111696. doi:10.1016/j.nut.2022.111696
5. Qi X, Wang X, Cheng L, et al. Dietary carotenoid intakes and biological aging among US adults, NHANES 1999–2018. Nutr J. 2025;24:9. doi:10.1186/s12937-025-01079-8
6. Vyas CM, Manson JE, Sesso HD, et al. Effect of multivitamin-mineral supplementation versus placebo on cognitive function: results from the clinic subcohort of the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) randomized clinical trial and meta-analysis of 3 cognitive studies within COSMOS. Am J Clin Nutr. 2024;119(3):692-701. doi:10.1016/j.ajcnut.2023.12.011
7. Bjelakovic G, Gluud LL, Nikolova D, et al. Vitamin D supplementation for prevention of mortality in adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014;2014(1):CD007470. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD007470.pub3

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