supplements

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lillo9546
Posts: 136
Joined: Sun May 22, 2022 12:17 pm
Location: Italy

supplements

Post by lillo9546 »

what's your POV about supplements such as vitamins, proteins, amino acids, creatine, BCAA's, minelars, salt?
Are those worth to get for our heatlh?

chenda
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Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Re: supplements

Post by chenda »

This is a very broad question and depends what you are using them for. There are a lot of conflicting studies on some of these supplements and a huge variation in quality/dosege in various products. Whilst a lot of supplements are overpriced junk, others are not and can provide health benefits.

basuragomi
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Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2019 3:13 pm

Re: supplements

Post by basuragomi »

I can guarantee that vitamin C supplements are mandatory if you subsist purely off of canned food.

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C40
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Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2011 4:30 am

Re: supplements

Post by C40 »

I think the studies related to creatine are quite consistent about it's effectiveness

black_son_of_gray
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Re: supplements

Post by black_son_of_gray »

lillo9546 wrote:
Thu Jun 01, 2023 2:54 am
what's your POV about supplements
This thread kinda died quickly, but I think there can be some conceptual "meat on the bone" to discuss beyond typical anecdotes/industry issues. A couple of thoughts to hopefully spur on that conversation, in no particular order:

1) Why supplement? A common perspective in certain nutrition/diet communities is something like "if you just ate a "good"/"healthy" diet, you'll get everything you need." Certainly, a lot of people could improve their diets. No argument there. But there is often a moral flavor to these arguments that brushes over some issues that aren't about personal responsibility. You could have a generally excellent diet quality, but have a SNP that dramatically affects certain vitamin/mineral levels. Or, for example, the soil quality of the farmland where your food is grown could be depleted of certain minerals, etc. Point being, there are often very good reasons to supplement that don't have to do with "you just eat a SAD diet- that is your problem." Some of those reasons, like soil depletion, might become even more compelling in the future.

2) How much to supplement? Hormesis is a concept that everyone would be better off familiarizing themselves with when it comes to biology. It is a gateway drug into thinking of metabolism as a system of chemical reactions. Balance is the point. Not too much, not too little. The wrinkle on top of this, though, is that some supplements can be safely dosed at high levels, some cannot (e.g. water vs fat soluble). That doesn't mean higher doses of those is "better", just "safer" than overdosing other things.

3) A statistical framework for supplementation? I personally do this. What are you most likely to be deficient in? What has the highest consequence if you are deficient? What has the lowest negative consequence if you supplement too much? This will vary from person to person, based on diet, genetics, activity levels, etc. I personally (read as: not in any way medical advice) supplement Vitamin D3, EPA/DHA, zinc/copper, B12, magnesium, and occasionally iron. It sounds like a lot, and even a decade ago I would probably have rolled my eyes if someone told me that. But I started each of these because they are actually quite common to be deficient in (different populations with different risk profiles), and they can be high consequence if you are deficient in them. (Also, these particularly happen to have a very large body of research on them.) I dose the supplements as supplement to my diet. I am not looking to have supernatural levels; I am looking to stay away from deficiency/insufficiency. This strategy, to my thinking, gives the most bang for the buck. I'm probably in the ballpark of about a dollar a day or so for my supplementation.

4) Is it a realistic expectation to think you can be adequately informed about a given supplement? This sounds so obnoxiously arrogant, but is also a real issue. I have a Ph.D. in a biological field and have been reading peer-reviewed nutrition journal articles for decades now, and it's honestly difficult for me to decipher much of the nutrition research. Nutrition/metabolism is extremely complex. Add on top of that nutrition science is extremely difficult to perform and interpret. Not all trials are equally well done. Not all meta-analyses are equally well done. Nuances in dosage/statistics/study design that even the scientists running them don't fully grasp can be make-or-break in terms of outcome. This is a big factor in why I personally stick to the most common, most researched topics with the biggest effect sizes whenever possible. And then supplement in such a way that, if all that research is somehow wrong, my regimen isn't likely to do me harm.

Anyway, that is some of my POV, from someone who has slowly gone from "it's ridiculous to supplement" to "I think it can make an awful lot of sense, and I personally do it" over the last couple decades.

IlliniDave
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Re: supplements

Post by IlliniDave »

In general I am pro-supplement and take quite a 'stack' of them. Mostly it is to round out nutrition although a few target cellular-level health which tend to overlap with those who supplement for longevity. Kinda makes sense--much of longevity is about fighting off the chronic diseases of aging, which in turn are often characterized by breakdowns/malfunctions at the cellular level. All I can say on the topic is that the combination of my current eating regimen, activity/exercise regimen, and supplement regimen leaves me feeling pretty good overall and improved most (but not all) of my traditional health markers.

Whether or not to supplement is one of those questions everyone should answer for themselves. I'd suggest having a goal, or goals, in mind to narrow down the list of potential candidates. In general I don't think nutritional supplements do a lot in isolation. I don't have a randomized controlled double blind study to back this up, but I think the most effective thing a person can do for overall well being is make good food choices. Next is to engage in a good amount of physical activity of varying intensity levels. Supplements would then follow as sort of the icing on the cake, to use a somewhat inappropriate metaphor given where food choices appears on my list. That's how it seems to work for me.

The Old Man
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Re: supplements

Post by The Old Man »

http://www.cronometer.com
The free site above will analyze your diet and identify the deficiencies. I take a multivitamin to deal with the deficiencies.

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Lemur
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Re: supplements

Post by Lemur »

I’ve been meaning to deep-dive one of these days if it is recommended to take a low dose statin as just a preventative measure of heart disease even if your blood work is otherwise fine and you’re generally healthy. I vaguely recall that supplementing Niacin or eating foods with Niacin can be preventative but I’m not sure. I just recently received Peter Attia’s book from the library.

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