so a lot of you asked me to collaborate with dr brad stanfield, he's a medical doctor based in new
zealand and he has a great evidence-based channel on health and medicine. so we recently linked up
and had a really interesting conversation about a lot of different health topics. for example, brad
talks a lot about supplementation on his channel and that's a topic that i've touched on a lot less
so i thought it'd be interesting for you guys to hear his take on it, a different perspective that
is still evidence-based. so here it is. most of what you'll hear online about supplements
is generally trying to sell you a supplement, so again it comes back to that healthy skepticism,
so i want to start there, and i also want to start by saying that diet, exercise and sleep
is what truly moves the needle for health and longevity purposes, and then there are certain
supplements that can add on to that but it's a small percentage benefit if we're doing the diet,
exercise and sleep, so if we talk about the things that likely make a huge difference,
one of the things that i try and talk about on my channel is we want to make sure that we're
getting enough of our micronutrients, so one of the micronutrients that we often don't get enough
of is vitamin d, and that's because we're indoors, we're not seeing the sun,
so many of us have got low levels of vitamin d, that's an issue because in a
british medical journal publication, so this was a meta-analysis that was done,
they showed that people who have low levels of vitamin d, if they are supplemented with
vitamin d, they have lower rates of the common cold, so vitamin d has a crucial role to play in
our immune system and we want to make sure that we do have those optimum levels of vitamin d,
so for me it makes sense to supplement with about 2 000 to 4 000 units of vitamin d every day,
so i do not advocate for mega dosing, i just think it's important to make sure that we're
getting enough of those micronutrients, so if anyone wanted to dip their toe into supplements
i think vitamin d would be a fantastic place to start. on that note, i want to tell the viewers
to go to my online store and get my supplement and get the discount code... just kidding, no we're
not selling... yeah yeah yeah. i think that's a really good distinction, so you're not saying...
so for people who have low levels of vitamin d, basically correcting,
normalizing, right? you're not saying everybody take it and if your levels are already normal,
try to go through the roof. can you give some numbers, like what values you recommend
and what values would be kind of alarming and where you should start supplementing?
measuring vitamin d is actually quite an expensive test so generally speaking the
medical guidelines do not suggest measuring it, what they suggest instead is that since
low dose of vitamin d is very safe, you may as well start supplementing it, so that's why
i suggest around two thousand to four thousand units every day, because there's long term human
safety data showing that it is safe and we do have human data as well showing that it is beneficial,
so one of the crucial trials showing a benefit again is that british medical journal paper that
i was referencing about the common cold, but we've also got another trial called the vital trial,
this is a trial that had a combination of vitamin d, omega-3 and placebo, so it was actually four
separate groups because you had vitamin d, omega-3, a combination of both and placebo,
and what they showed is that in the vitamin d group there was a 22% reduction in the onset
of new autoimmune diseases, so that gives further justification about how important healthy levels
of vitamin d is for the immune system, so if you take 2 000 units of vitamin d you're going to make
sure that your levels are optimal but you're not going to be overdosing, so i think vitamin d is
one of the things that you can just say to people, take a low dose and that's safe to do, so i don't
advocate measuring vitamin d in the blood because it's an expensive test. and that's regardless of
where they live or if they're exposed to sunlight or not? so, it depends, because one of the things
that i also talk about on my channel is sunscreen, so there's overwhelming evidence showing that
too much sun exposure will age the skin and it increases the chances of skin cancer,
so every morning i put sunscreen on, so I know that if i didn't supplement with vitamin d,
my levels will be low, but that's fine because vitamin d is safe and there's very good sources
or brands that produce vitamin d, so i think that for most people low-dose vitamin d is indicated.
okay, what are other supplements that you take or recommend? yeah, on that point of just making sure
that we get the optimal levels, zinc is one that's a hot topic at the moment because of covid, so
for men we want 15 milligrams of elemental zinc in our diet every day, and that's kind of the optimal
level, but if you actually have a look at how to do that from the diet, it's very difficult to do,
so i supplement with a small dose of zinc every day, so i have about eight milligrams
of elemental zinc, so again, i'm not advocating in any way for mega dosing, what i'm doing is making
sure that i'm hitting that optimal level of zinc intake and again, i do not advocate that we should
be measuring zinc in the blood, because if you're taking that very small dose you are not going to
be causing yourself issues, so if you do megadose with zinc, one of the issues is copper absorption,
so you don't want to be running into that and you don't want to be having to supplement with copper,
so you may as well just take a very small dose of zinc to make sure that
you're reaching that optimal level, and it's a similar thing for magnesium supplements as well,
so those are the things that i think it's safe for everyone to be doing, and again,
it's making sure that you're reaching that optimal level of vitamin and mineral intake for zinc. from
what I remember, i remember seeing one large trial for covid where there wasn't really any
benefit of supplementing with zinc, i don't know if you've seen evidence that differs from that
or if you've seen any documented positive outcome for zinc supplementation? i don't take zinc to
protect myself from covid, because i think that there's no evidence that it does that, but i think
there is evidence that we want to make sure that we're reaching those optimal levels of zinc
intake, and and we can do that via a small dose of zinc supplements. what about omega-3s, we touched
on that, do you take that, do you recommend epa dha? yeah so i do take omega-3, and again, this is
this is primarily because of what was found from the vital trial, so in the vital trial if you look
at the the headline reading, it says there was no reduction in cardiovascular mortality, so there
was no reduction in deaths from heart disease, but there was a, i think it was a roughly a 22%
reduction in heart attacks, so yes, by the sound of it by taking omega-3 you're not going to be
reducing cardiovascular deaths but you could be reducing heart attacks, and i think that
just goes to show how awesome today's treatments are for patients that are having a heart attack,
that we can go in and we can open up that blood vessel and essentially save that patient's life,
so it doesn't look like, again, that by taking omega-3 we will be extending lifespan or saving
lives but we can possibly be generally healthier because again, we're reducing the chances of
having heart attacks, so i take between one and two grams of omega-3, and i take the mixture
of epa and dha, there was a suggestion that it was only epa that was causing these benefits,
but there was an analysis from the mayo clinic published in 2021 essentially that showed that
the evidence was inconclusive at this stage, so i still take both. that's interesting, because i've
seen also mixed evidence, i remember a systematic review that did conclude in that direction,
that the dha was kind of dampening the beneficial effect of the epa, and this is from the studies,
JELIS and these other studies that found an effect with epa alone but then some of the trials that
combined them didn't see much, so that was kind of the the explanation that they came up with,
that the benefit would be coming primarily from epa, and dha would kind of be getting in the way,
but i agree that there's mixed evidence, it's not entirely clear at this time. yeah i agree
and it's difficult because the different meta analyses show different results, why
i like the mayo clinic analysis was that they only included trials where omega 3 was supplemented, so
a lot of the other meta-analyses include dietary advice, so if someone was encouraged to eat more
fatty fish such as salmon, those trials are also included in those meta-analyses,
whereas the mayo clinic just included the trials of supplementation of omega-3 so i think since
we're talking about supplementing omega-3 i think that's a more robust analysis to refer to,
and again, in that analysis they essentially said that the evidence was inconclusive about
dha versus epa so i think the jury's still out, but at this stage i still take both. on the topic
of fish, that's an interesting point because these trials are mostly
in western populations that tend to not eat a lot of fish so they don't have a
lot of dietary sources of dh/epa but for viewers who may have more of a robust intake of
fatty fish like salmon and these things, do you have any thoughts on whether it would
still be beneficial to supplement on top of that? i think it's an open question, the only
trial data that i can refer back to is the vital trial, where again, placebo
controlled and we can see this reduction in heart attacks, so it's an open question, i think if you're
eating a lot of salmon you're probably not going to get much benefit but it's difficult to
say, it's sort of speculation at the moment, i would say though that it makes
sense you'd have less benefit from omega-3 supplements if you're already eating a lot
of salmon but then the question is, is the salmon that you're eating a high quality salmon
that's low in heavy metals, that's a whole separate question as well
so yeah it's tricky. right and by the same token are the
long chain omega-3s just rescuing some of the harm of a typical western diet, if you're on a
healthy diet to begin with, are you going to see any benefit, that's always a kind of an open
question, and then there's the issue of these omega-3s, they have some of these outcomes for
cardiovascular ends and then they have cognitive function trials and i've looked at quite
a few of those and there there's also some mixed evidence, but i personally avoid fish and
seafood, not for health concerns but because of, primarily for environmental reasons, and so I take,
most of the time i take an epa/dha algae supplement, more for the for the cognitive
function concern, even though i am not convinced that they are definitely beneficial
but i haven't seen any safety concerns, so i kind of take it just as a precaution
do you have any thoughts on the cognitive function end of the spectrum? yeah
i don't think that there's any convincing evidence one way or the other, i think it's still an open
question, i think the cardiovascular stuff is enough of a reason to take it
and so if we get cognitive benefits then i think that's great but i think it's still an
open question, there is some observational data I think, that suggests a link between
lower intake of omega-3 and lower cognitive performance, particularly as we age, but
i'm not too sure that there's been much in the way of interventional forward-looking trials
that back that up, so again, i think it's still an open question, and hey, it
would be a fantastic extra benefit, but on the point of cognition there's
another supplement that i take that again, has some possible cognitive benefits, which is creatine
so i personally take creatine for the muscle performance and muscle recovery aspect
and overwhelmingly, it's been shown to be a very safe supplement and i think in terms of the
longevity space i think it's underrated, and there's possibly some cognitive benefits as well
with creatine, so every day i take about five grams of creatine. okay, interesting, yeah that's
very common among athletes for muscle recovery and that type of thing
but i hadn't heard the cognitive angle. again, there's there's mixed evidence about it,
it's a possibility, but i think there's enough justification in terms of the muscle recovery
and muscle performance to justify taking creatine, particularly with the safety data that we've got
now. you know, we've kind of already touched on a lot of supplements that i think
make sense to take, that are not dangerous, and again, it's making sure that we get
those optimum levels, i think if people wanted to dip their toe into supplements
i think the things that we've already talked about are a great place to start
there's other things that have got some evidence in terms of skin health and whatnot, so
things like collagen peptides, which when i first looked into i thought it was
just a complete nonsense field, because how can you possibly absorb these collagen peptides, but
there are multiple randomized placebo-controlled studies and a meta-analysis suggesting that yes,
you do see a benefit with collagen peptides and skin health, so if people
really wanted to continue down the rabbit hole of supplementation, collagen peptides might be another
one to look at. so those are hydrolyzed? yeah that's right, so just
for the viewers, hydrolyzed collagen, essentially collagen is a long molecule, and hydrolyzed just
means that you've chopped it up into smaller bits, so those are the resulting peptides
and it seems that that for whatever reason generates better results for skin health, and
if it's improving aspects of skin health, is it improving other things, is it improving
blood vessel health or joint health? it's an open question, i don't think we've got the trial data to
say one way or the other just yet but it's an interesting reason to take
collagen peptides anyway. so that was our chat. as a disclosure, the supplements I take,
i take a b12 once a week, 2,000 micrograms, i take vitamin d, 2,000 international units give or take
i'm not religious about it, i take it maybe three four times a week, when i remember
and the reason i take it is i consume very little dairy, not that many fortified foods
and i don't spend that much time in the sun, and i actually have measured my vitamin d levels
and i know that when i don't supplement they tend to dip a little lower than ideal but when i'm
taking the supplement they're in the good range. and lastly, as i mentioned to brad, an algae oil,
about 800 milligrams per day of epa/dha. so you can see that there's significant overlap between
what we do, there's also some differences, and with some of these questions there's a gray area, right?
it's still being figured out, it's not set in stone. we talked about b12 and epa/dha in
detail in some previous videos but we can always go over more supplements if there's interest
check out brad's channel, let me know your questions, take care, see you next time