Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 128: 3 UNDERRATED Supplements that may Help Mental & Physical Health!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everybody, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, it's your host, Danny Matrenga, and today's episode is going to be kind of fun. I'm going to be going over three fairly underrated benefits of some supplements that I take every single day. Now, these are supplements that are traditionally thought of as performance enhancers, recovery enhancers, or just general health enhancers. But the ones that I'm going to show or share with you today have benefits for cognitive well-being, mood, performance, strength, recovery, all of them. You've probably heard of them. You've probably heard me talk about them. But I thought it might be nice to unpack them in greater detail, whether you're a fitness

Starting point is 00:00:44 enthusiast, hobbyist, somebody who works with clients in a professional setting. I think that understanding the relationship between supplements and outcomes is really important. And I'll be the first to tell you that I think we rely much too heavily on supplements to drive outcomes that would be better off driven by lifestyle modification. So, for example, I want to raise my testosterone, so I'm taking over-the-counter testosterone boosters. I would first say, you're much better off getting adequate sleep. If you were to say, oh, I'm taking a fat burner because I want to burn body fat, I'd say, well, you're much better off watching your food intake

Starting point is 00:01:18 and making sure that you're in a calorie deficit. So all of these things that we're going to talk about today are certainly upper echelon, higher level things. So I want to preface everything we talk about today by saying first, none of the supplements we're talking about are going to make a huge difference if your nutrition isn't where it needs to be, if your exercise and lifestyle habits aren't where they need to be, but they are certainly interesting. The first supplement we're going to talk about today are certainly interesting. The first supplement we're going to talk about today is EPA and DHA,

Starting point is 00:01:52 or as they're more often referred to, the omega-3s. Oftentimes when you hear people extending the, hey, you should take omega-3 generalized recommendation, what you're going to hear them offering are things like fish oils. So fish oils, particularly oils that are extracted from fatty cold water fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines tend to be very, very rich in omega-3s or EPA and DHA fatty acids are the ones that we're really looking for. Now, another place that you will probably see EPA and DHA touted quite a bit is from the grass fed meat community. Now, cow and beef in general is a fattier cut of meat. Uh, I shouldn't say cut of meat, but it's a fattier meat in general. So all of your meats, for example, poultry have some areas that are fattier than others. So dark meat poultry, like think about Thanksgiving. The dark meat portion of

Starting point is 00:02:45 the turkey is generally quite a bit fatter, fattier. And I've heard this, I don't know if this is entirely true, but I found it interesting and wanted to throw it in today. Um, and this was from a high school anatomy class. So this could very well be bro science, but it actually makes some sense. And that was that dark meat on poultry is proportionally more slow twitch muscle fiber, meaning the muscled fibers that contract, they're much more fatigue resistant, right? Which kind of makes sense because those are like things like the thighs in the drumsticks, right? Maybe those legs would need to be more fatigue resistant because they're actually responsible for locomotion of the chicken or the turkey in this example. And then another thing that I thought was fascinating as well, slow twitch muscle fibers

Starting point is 00:03:29 tend to have greater fat deposits in them. That might be why those tissues are also more flavorful, whereas white meat poultry tends to be more fast twitch muscle fiber, less likely to have fat in it, more hypertrophied, maybe drier, right? Less tender. I don't know if that's true or not, but I found it to be quite funny. Going back to what I was talking about originally though, is red meat tends to be a fairly fatty animal to source your protein from. Things like sirloin and chuck can be pretty lean when it comes to sourcing red meat, but some of the more popular cuts like filet mignon, which is the leanest of those primo cuts, ribeye in New York tend to have quite a bit of fat. And there's a lot of pushback against what fats are good or quote unquote not good for you in the context of

Starting point is 00:04:16 your overall health. And certainly getting too many of the wrong kinds of fats isn't setting you up for success. Now, big time proponents of the grass fed meat movement, I think we can call it a movement, will swear up and down to you that grass fed meats are better because they have a higher quality of, or a higher, let's say, ratio of omega-3 fats than conventionally or grain fed beef, conventionally farmed or grain-fed. Now, I still think if you're going to try to get your omega-3 intake or omega-3 fatty acid intake through your diet, your best bet is those fatty fish. So including salmon one to two times a week is always a good idea

Starting point is 00:04:58 if you're conscientious about your intake of omega-3. And you might want to be aware of how that salmon is sourced. Some salmon may or may not be higher in mercury, whether it's free range, even though they're not range. What do they call that? Wild caught? Yeah, wild caught versus farmed. So that's something to be mindful of. That's not an area of absolute expertise for me. So I don't want to speak to something like mercury toxicity without being an expert, but I do think if you are going to eat a ton of a protein that might be exposed to greater levels of mercury if it's farmed than if it's wild caught, you should make those considerations. But things like sardines, mackerel, and salmon are phenomenal sources of whole food-based fatty

Starting point is 00:05:41 acids. If you want to try to get them from, let's say, beef, your best bet, I guess, would be grass-fed, but I don't think the difference is so big that you could get it exclusively from grass-fed red meat without eating a ton of it, and you're not going to get very much from poultry. Now, there are some plant-based sources of omega-3. However, I have found for my clients who are vegetarian or plant-based that omega-3 supplementation through things like algae-based fish oil supplements is the best way to go. Another thing that you'll often see with fish oil supplements is they're going to be marketed as being burp-free or taste-free because it kind of tastes a little bit fishy if you're burping up a fish oil. So

Starting point is 00:06:25 oftentimes you will see animal-based fish oils included with things like, you know, orange oil or lemon oil to keep those tastes and scents from being so obviously fishy. And the plant-based ones, the algae-based ones, tend to be relatively taste-free. So those are options that I quite like. Whether you're going to get it quite like, whether you're going to get it from your diet or you're going to get it from supplementation. I do both because I find it hard to eat a lot of salmon and I'm not a huge fan of mackerel and sardines, although Cooper loves sardines and I give them to him fairly regularly for his coat because dogs also tend to do pretty well if they get some omega-3 in their diet, which is kind of fun. But looking at omega-3,

Starting point is 00:07:06 what we know it does, what it's very popular in kind of getting into the bone, the meat and potatoes of the episodes or of this episode, we know that omega-3 is really popular for what it does for the heart and for what it does for the brain. And all of the studies that show the various efficacies for the things I'm talking about are actually linked in the show notes if you want to check it out. We know that omega-3s are good for the heart, and we know that they're good for the brain. The brain actually contains a lot of omega-3 fat. If you've ever wondered, hey, what is my brain made out of? It's made out of quite a bit of fat. But one of the things that I think is really underrated about omega-3 is that it's actually

Starting point is 00:07:45 good for the health of our eyes. So believe it or not, the retina is actually comprised of a lot of omega-3. Omega-3 is a big time structural component. And if you don't get enough DHA, it's actually been shown that you can have vision problems. And additionally, you look at things like macular degeneration, which is a really common eye condition, something that one of my clients has, or actually two of my clients struggle with. And that has been linked to reduced intake of omega three. Going back to the health of the retina, something very interesting that I figured I'd share because this popped up with a client of mine last week. This is somebody that I've worked with for years and she's awesome. She's one of my best clients. She's a phenomenal person. And she was describing to me on our session on Monday

Starting point is 00:08:34 that she had floaters in her eyes. And if you're familiar with floaters, floaters are like little specks that kind of are transient and they sometimes come and go or they're sometimes super present. Oftentimes they're white or black and they're like little tiny things that almost just live in your retina. And she was joking about it. And she was like, Oh, make friends with your floaters. That's what my ophthalmologist says. Make friends with your floaters. And we were laughing about it. And then when I saw her a couple of days later, she said, wow, you know, my floaters are really getting larger and darker. And you know, one side of my eye just kind of looks black. And I was like, you know, that sounds a little bit concerning. And so then the following

Starting point is 00:09:10 day I trained my client who has macular degeneration and who one of, one of the two, it's actually a brother and sister. So maybe there's a genetic link there. I'd be inclined to imagine there is. Um, and I was explaining to him, I said, yeah, you know, one of my clients had floaters, but then she had something really, really strange pop up. And he said, that sounds like it could be a damaged retina. You should have her go to the ophthalmologist. And so she goes to the ophthalmologist and sure enough, she has a torn retina. And at this point, basically all she's seeing is like brown and black. And what she's seeing is blood from it escaping from the retinal wall. And so they did a surgery and I wanted to share this because I think this surgery was insane. Basically they numbed her eye

Starting point is 00:09:54 and then injected a gas bubble into the actual sphere of the eye. And it expands into this, this collapsed region of the retina and pushes it back outward and it heals in place and then you have a functioning eye again so pretty crazy little segue there another thing that omega-3 is known to be good for and you've probably heard this is it's a potent anti-inflammatory now inflammation and quote-unquote anti-inflammatory things are all over the place they're esoteric they're a little bit hard to understand, but it seems like omega-3s reduce the production of some types of the inflammatory response. So much so that if you're going in for something like say lip injections,

Starting point is 00:10:35 they might actually make sure that you have not had omega-3s or omega-3 supplements, um, prior to getting an injection because it can make the bleeding due to the anti-inflammatory effect and blood thinning effect quite profuse. Another thing omega-3s are known to be good for is the health of the skin, right? Particularly conditions like psoriasis. Again, more stuff linked here. I have had my fair share of dealing with things like psoriasis and eczema and omega-3 does seem to help. Another thing is recovery, actual muscle recovery. And it's been shown that omega-3, probably through the same pathways that helps with inflammation, might be able to help with excessive muscle damage. And then most interestingly, to me anyway, is omega-3's impact on mood and depression. And so there may be a positive association between omega-3 intake and certain forms of depression. And again, all of this stuff is linked down for you below if

Starting point is 00:11:29 you want to read more into it. And I'm not saying that you should take omega-3 for these reasons. Again, I'm not a doctor. You shouldn't listen to me about anything related to your health conditions specifically. These are just fun things to talk about. But if you told me that a largely innocuous supplement, meaning there's almost no risk for harm here, has a very, very robust body of literature and evidence that shown that it can help my heart, my brain, the health of my eyes, be a potent anti-inflammatory, help with the long-term health of my skin, help me recover and help me manage my mood and maybe deal with things like depression, that's pretty phenomenal. And that's what fish oil can do or EPA, DHA, fatty acid supplementation from fish oil or things like algae. So if you're not yet taking a fish oil

Starting point is 00:12:18 and it's in your budget, it's in your monthly framework of things you can afford for your health, I would recommend adding one in. And again, the fish oil is not the only way to get omega-3. You can get it from krill oil, and you can also get it from algae-based supplementation if you're having a hard time sourcing it from whole foods. The number two supplement is one that you guys have no doubt heard me talk about ad nauseum on my Instagram, or on my mailing list, or on Facebook Instagram or on my mailing list or on Facebook or on YouTube. And that is creatine, particularly creatine monohydrate. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me

Starting point is 00:12:59 if you would share it on your social media. Simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and enjoy the rest of the episode. I want to get this out there first. There are multiple different forms of supplemental creatine, but the form that is the most studied, which means it has the most, it gives us the greatest ability to lean into it with confidence, let's say that, because we know it has been studied more in depth than any of the other forms. It doesn't mean the other forms don't work per se, but practically speaking, the other

Starting point is 00:13:40 forms of creatine, not creatine monohydrate, like creatine hydrochloride or creatine magnesium chelate, there's dozens. They've just, for what they've been shown to do in the research, they're not better than creatine monohydrate and they're almost always more expensive. So when I make creatine recommendations, I almost always default to creatine monohydrate. But I did want to stipulate one of the common problems that people run into with creatine supplementation is gastrointestinal distress. In fact, many people I know want to take creatine. They know the benefits. They understand the benefits. We'll talk more about what those are in a minute. But they've dealt with gastrointestinal distress from

Starting point is 00:14:22 taking creatine in the past. There's a few things that I find cause this gastrointestinal distress. The first is taking too much creatine. Creatine is often recommended to be loaded. It's often recommended that creatine is loaded. So a lot of supplement manufacturers will include loading instructions on the label to take 10 to 20 grams of creatine a day for anywhere between 7 to 10 days, sometimes up to like two weeks, to help your creatine stores become saturated more quickly so you can actually reap the benefits. Because it does take a while for creatine stores to fully saturate and for lifters to get the anaerobic performance benefits of creatine. But a lot of times taking that much creatine can cause gastrointestinal distress.

Starting point is 00:15:09 So if you've dealt with GI distress in the past, I recommend starting with between two to five grams a day. If you're having gastrointestinal distress, you can play with some of those other forms like creatine hydrochloride, right? Which apparently is easier on the stomach. That's purely anecdotal. That's what I've heard. Or you can try capsules. I wanted to bring this to the table because I've

Starting point is 00:15:29 heard this recommended by a lot of people recently that smaller capsules of creatine, maybe half gram to gram capsules spread across the day can help people get to that two to five gram threshold and seem to be less likely to cause gastrointestinal distress. Now that's purely anecdotal, but I wanted to throw that out there before we get in depth into the conversation about creatine. But first off, we're talking about creatine as a supplement most oftentimes with regards to its ability to increase strength and increase performance. And I think that creatine is phenomenal for both of those things. I use it with clients almost exclusively for those things all the time.

Starting point is 00:16:07 And for the first five to ten years I supplemented with creatine, I'll say five, I didn't know there were any other benefits. In fact, I thought it might be harmful. And again, I'm not a doctor, and you shouldn't take any of my advice seriously with regards to different conditions, whether they be cognitive, muscular, neuromuscular, you name it. But it seems like creatine integrates much more heavily in the brain or with the brain than we initially thought. We thought this was something that kind of works exclusively with muscle. It helps you get bigger by helping you regenerate ATP and work

Starting point is 00:16:44 harder and by pulling muscle into and by pulling water into muscle. And maybe it even helps with nutrient uptake or activation of certain things, certain satellite cells. Seems to be a potent anabolic agent with regards to its ability to help you gain muscle without having any androgenic hormonal side effects. So safe for men and women to increase performance. However, more recent research is showing creatine to be linked to memory benefits, having neuroprotective effects, being able to help with things like Parkinson's, stroke, Alzheimer's. And again, this is not a cure. This is just research to look into that creatine may be beneficial for long-term cognitive health. And one of the things to me that's really exciting about this is cognitive or neurological health is something that's very close to me. My

Starting point is 00:17:37 dad has Parkinson's disease, which is one of the conditions that has some mixed research. I'll say mixed. I have seen studies that show creatine does nothing for Parkinson's disease. I've seen others that say it might have an effect. But when you pair that with some of the other research that shows creatine might have positive effects on memory, it might be neuroprotective, knowing that I'm already lifting weights and I'm already exercising, but also wanting to be cognizant of my long-term mental health, as well as the long-term health of the actual organ that is my brain, supplementing with creatine makes more and more sense every day. And I even recommend creatine for my advanced age adult clients, people who are, let's say, over the age of 65,

Starting point is 00:18:21 who maybe don't need the extra push in the gym because they train very submaximally, which most of them don't. Most of my advanced age clients train pretty hard. We do quite a bit of heavy lifting. We include some scaled forms of power training. We have a good time with it. It's awesome. But you might look at them and go, well, you probably don't need supplemental creatine at this point in your life because, you know, you're not trying to be as big and as strong as possible. And I think that, one, that's foolish because the creatine does help with recovery, might help with nutrient partitioning, all the things we know that it does. But also, those are the people who I find are most concerned with the preservation of their cognitive abilities. And if creatine can, I'm not saying it

Starting point is 00:19:04 does, but if creatine can help with that, it might be worth supplementing with even if you aren't active. And so I've gotten to a point with creatine where I look at it as being very firmly in the camp of performance, as well as very firmly in the camp of longevity and well-being. And fish oil has always been one of those supplements that I said, man, you know, I can't think of a person that I would, I gotta stop calling it fish oil. Omega-3 has always been something that I've said, I can't imagine not, you know, if it was financially feasible, not recommending that a client supplement with this. You know, if they eat a lot of fatty fish, then it's fine.

Starting point is 00:19:45 They don't have to. But most people don't. And given the benefits, given the robust amount of literature that shows that having the right level of omega-3 intake can help with your heart, can help with your brain, can help with your eyes, can help with your skin, can help with your mood, all of this stuff, I gotta lean into it. And sure enough, creatine does the same stuff. Yes, it does help the muscles. Yes, it does help with strength. Yes, it does help with performance. Yes, it does help with recovery. I look at that as like the duh. Okay, that's obvious. But now we know it might be neuroprotective. It could help potentially help minimize the impact of some of these really debilitating conditions that affect people's lives and families. And even if it makes a 1% difference, it might be worth experimenting with if you're comfortable with it and you talk to your doctor

Starting point is 00:20:28 and you get clear to start supplementing with creatine. But also, one of the things that I found to be most interesting was creatine might even help with acute intelligence or memory and depression. And these are things that I learned about from listening to the podcast Huberman Lab with Andrew Huberman. He did a phenomenal podcast where he talked quite a bit about creatine. And if you want to learn more about creatine's ability to affect the, let's say, our neurology and the role that it plays with our nervous system, I would strongly recommend listening to that podcast. You can probably find it by typing in Andrew Huberman creatine or Huberman lab creatine. I'm sure it will pop up. That's one that I really, really enjoy. And the last supplement today, the last, what I would describe as partially underrated, it's properly rated for what we know it does. It's partially underrated for what we

Starting point is 00:21:20 don't give it credit for is magnesium. I'm a big fan of magnesium because I have found that most of my clients have a hard time getting adequate magnesium in throughout the day. And magnesium is fairly important. So that was something that I started having clients and myself supplement with pretty early because you get magnesium from things like leafy greens, cacao, cashews, certain other nuts, peanuts, I think, avocados. But it's hard to get it in, let's say, adequate dosages if you're being mindful of your calories. Because with the exception of some of the green stuff that I mentioned, right, some of those other foods and sources might be high in calories. So supplementing with magnesium

Starting point is 00:22:03 could be beneficial. We know it as a mineral. In fact, it's an electrolyte, something that doesn't dissolve in water and might even help with hydration. But we don't often give it the credit that it's due or its ability to help with decreasing muscle soreness, right? You've probably heard of Epsom salt baths and Epsom salt baths, the literature on Epsom salt baths and their actual ability to help relieve muscle soreness is, let's say, contentious. But one of the interesting things about Epsom salt is it's not actually table salt. It's magnesium sulfate. So it's a type of magnesium. And, you know, soaking your body in magnesium, if we know that there's a positive link with soreness, makes some sense,

Starting point is 00:22:48 but it might be better to just take oral magnesium. Generally, I take magnesium bisglycinate, but Dr. Rhonda Patrick, and again, if you want to learn more about this, I would recommend Googling Rhonda Patrick magnesium. I remember a while ago, she recommended magnesium L-3 and 8 because it might be better at crossing the blood-brain barrier and stimulating some of the positive

Starting point is 00:23:10 effects magnesium can have on sleep and mood. Again, we know it's an important mineral. We know it plays a role in muscle contraction. We know it plays a role in the stress response, but very rarely do we think of magnesium's ability to help with our sleep and to help with our mood. And so for clients who might be deficient in magnesium, I find that supplementing with magnesium can be really, really beneficial. So three supplements that I absolutely love and take every single day are omega-3 and DHA, or EPA and DHA in the form of omega-3, creatine monohydrate, and magnesium. What we know about EPA and DHA and what we commonly heard referenced about its efficacy is with regards to things like the brain and heart. But, and again, you can see the sources I've cited below and do your own research on top of this, there's a lot of reasons to be excited about the ways that omega-3 might

Starting point is 00:24:00 be able to help the long-term health of our eyes. It might be able to help us manage this constant battle of inflammation that we're all so concerned about, especially with the link to chronically elevated levels of inflammation and disease. It might be beneficial for your skin, recovery, and even depression. Same thing with creatine. We know about its benefits for muscle and strength, but it has unique cognitive benefits. It can help with depression. It might even be neuroprotective and help with things like memory and acute intelligence.

Starting point is 00:24:28 And magnesium, often touted as something that can help with stress response. We know it's a electrolyte that we need to have an adequate balance. We know it plays a role in muscle contraction. We think about it almost as this operative piece of our larger machinery in that, you know, it plays a role in all these small little things, but is it really that important? And it is very important. It's used for thousands of biological reactions across the body. Most of those minerals and vitamins tend to be really important, but beyond just making sure you're getting enough, supplemental magnesium might be able to help with sleep, soreness, and even your mood. And to me, the fact that these things tend to be worth supplementing with, given my situation as

Starting point is 00:25:11 somebody who is active, right? Like I would take EPA and DHA omega-3 supplements, whether I was active or not, but they're particularly beneficial given my level of activity. Creatine, I would probably take whether I was active or not, but it becomes a non-negotiable given my affinity for resistance training. Magnesium is probably something I would supplement with given my inability to get adequate amounts through my diet whether I was active or not, but knowing it can help with my sleep and my soreness makes it worth supplementing with. So these are three supplements, guys, that I think are largely overlooked for what they do beyond what we know them to be good for. So hopefully you found this episode enjoyable. If you're looking for good

Starting point is 00:25:50 forms of these supplements, you can feel free to message me. My go-to is always Legion. Legion makes a great fish oil and a phenomenal creatine. And I actually get a lot of my supplemental magnesium from my Element electrolytes that I drink every morning, fasted. That's the first thing I start my day with. And both of those will be linked for you in the show notes below if you are looking to support the show through shopping through our various patrons. So if you guys have yet to hit subscribe or you've yet to leave the podcast a rating and review, those kinds of things are unbelievably valuable for me. They help me continue to grow and develop the podcast, reach more people. So anything you can do to help is greatly appreciated. If you haven't subscribed on Apple, but you listen on Spotify, do that.

Starting point is 00:26:33 If you haven't subscribed on Spotify and you listen on Apple, do that. The more downloads I get, the more reviews I get, the more people I can reach and always spreading things like this on Facebook, Twitter, on Instagram stories, tagging me so I can say thank you goes a long way. Thanks so much for listening and we'll chat soon.

Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 128: 3 *UNDERRATED* Supplements that may Help Mental & Physical Health!

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Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 128: 3 UNDERRATED Supplements that may Help Mental & Physical Health!