do vitamin & mineral pills make kids smarter?

With the steadily rising cost of a college education, who doesn’t want their child to perform optimally in school? Can you help your kids land a full 4-year scholarship by simply giving them a vitamin and mineral tablet each day? According to a recent study, you had better keep funding that college savings account, because there is no magic pill to make kids smarter.

In an effort to study the cognitive performance of schoolchildren (up to age 18), researchers did a systemic review of randomized controlled clinical trials that examined the effect of micronutrient supplementation on cognition in healthy kids.

While the researchers did see a “marginal” improvement in academic performance in the supplement groups compared with the control groups, other intelligence markers did not improve, according to the report that appeared in the January issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.