Popular supplement may be the secret to slowing down aging heres how much you need

Want to age a little more like Helen Mirren and a little less like your iPhone battery?A new study says the fountain of youth might already be in your medicine cabinet.Researchers of a trial called VITAL, which tracked women and men over 50 for five years, found that vitamin D supplements may help slow biological aging by as much as three years.Another popular supplement — those infamous omega-3 fatty acids — was not shown to have the same effect. This study, published Wednesday in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, revealed that vitamin D seems to shield telomeres — the tiny caps at the ends of your chromosomes that shrink as you age and are tied to diseases like cancer, heart issues and other chronic conditions.Telomeres are like the caps on your shoelaces — when they wear down, things start to unravel quickly.

“Our findings that vitamin D supplementation preserved telomere length in the VITAL trial suggest a promising role for vitamin D in slowing a pathway for biological aging and age-related chronic disease,” Dr.JoAnn Manson, principal investigator of VITAL and chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told The Post.“But we believe that replication of these results in a separate randomized trial will be important before changing general guidelines for vitamin D intake.”That’s partly because what is considered an appropriate level of vitamin D remains, as she put it, “a controversial topic.”“Blood levels for deficiency and recommended blood levels vary across organizations, labs and countries, which is one of the reasons for doubt about the test’s usefulness,” Manson said.“For example, the National Academy of Medicine suggests a level at or above 20 milliliters (mL), but some other organizations recommend 30 mL or even higher levels.

There’s no consensus or agreement on the optimal level to aim for.”Furthermore, while many trusted health organizations don’t recomme...