It is estimated that more than 1 in 3 Americans take vitamin supplements every day. Many believe that by taking these pills, they can improve brain function. B Vitamins are especially popular.

Do they work?

My suspicion is, as long as you don’t have a significant deficiency, they are probably not doing your brain very much good.

In fact, a meta-analysis was published in the January issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine that looked at this very issue.

The study looked at 14 trials that tested the cognitive benefits of taking vitamin B6, B12, and folic acid. Unfortunately, on most tests of mental function, no improvement was seen. [Reference below]

Now this is not to say vitamins can’t boost brain power. The question, however, becomes: Where are you getting them from? The majority of recent research indicates you have to go to the raw food source as opposed to a pill.

Importantly:

• Vitamins are just part of the food, and contain just a tiny fraction of the hundreds of beneficial organic compounds (i.e., phytochemicals) present in a fruit or vegetable. For example, many people associate Vitamin C with oranges. An orange, however, contains over 190 phytochemicals, and the vast majority of these will never make their way into a vitamin pill.
• The hundreds of beneficial organic compounds in raw food are balanced, and work synergistically. This is just not possible when a few vitamins are synthetically isolated in pill form.

Raw food is the greatest supplement of all.

If you’d like to read more on the brain boosting effects of phytochemicals, here are a few earlier smartkit posts that I recommend:

• What a glass of fruit or vegetable juice can do for your brain
• Green leafy vegetables most able to slow the rate of cogntive decline
• Grape Juice reverses brain aging
• Strawberries prevent memory loss

Reference: Arch Intern Med. 2007;167:21-30. Vitamin B6, B12, and Folic Acid Supplementation and Cognitive Function.

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