The Dr. Hyman Show - How To Choose The Best Supplements for Optimal Health | Dr. Mark Hyman
Episode Date: July 19, 2024The perfect diet isn't always enough – sometimes we need a little help from supplements to feel our very best. On today’s episode of “The Doctor’s Farmacy,” I’m giving you the ultimate sup...plement stack to complement your wellness routine so you can live better. We’ll cover the basics from multivitamins to probiotics and discuss why personalized testing is key to getting it right. Let’s explore how to effectively use supplements to bridge the nutritional gaps in your diet. View Show Notes From This Episode Get Free Weekly Health Tips from Dr. Hyman Sign Up for Dr. Hyman’s Weekly Longevity Journal This episode is brought to you by Mitopure, Fatty15, and SleepMe. Support essential mitochondrial health and save 10% on Mitopure. Visit TimelineNutrition.com/Drhyman and use code DRHYMAN10. Fatty15 contains pure, award-winning C15:0 in a bioavailable form. Get an exclusive 10% off a 90-day starter kit subscription. Just visit Fatty15.com and use code DRHYMAN10 to get started. Customize your sleep with ChiliPad. Visit sleep.me/DRHYMAN and save up to $315 with code DRHYMAN.
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Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy.
Nobody really needs supplements, but only under certain conditions.
They need to hunt and gather their own wild food.
They need to drink only pure, clean water, breathe pure, clean air,
be exposed to no environmental toxins, wake up with the sun, go to bed with the sun,
have no chronic stress.
And if that describes you, then no, you do not need supplements.
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Hey everyone, Dr. Mark here. You've probably heard of omega-3 fatty acids, maybe even omega-6.
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Now, before we jump into today's episode, I'd like to note that while I wish I could
help everyone by my personal practice, there's simply not enough time for me to do this at
scale.
And that's why I've been busy building several passion projects to help you better understand,
well, you.
If you're looking for data about your biology, check out Function
Health for real-time lab insights. And if you're in need of deepening your knowledge around your
health journey, well, check out my membership community, Dr. Hyman Plus. And if you're looking
for curated trusted supplements and health products for your health journey, visit my
website, drhyman.com, for my website store and a summary of my favorite and thoroughly tested products.
Welcome to the doctor's pharmacy and another edition of health bites. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman.
Today I'm giving you the ultimate supplement stack to complement your wellness routine so you can feel and live better every day. But before we get into that, we need to cover some ground rules for
why I strongly advocate testing over guessing when it comes to
dialing in your supplement staples. Here's the deal. Without testing, it's like throwing darts
blindfolded. You'll never hit the bullseye and you might end up wasting a lot of money on supplements
you don't need, which could be like flushing money down the toilet, literally. And that's why
it's good to work closely with your healthcare provider to get the specific test done that you
need. And this way, your doctor can tailor your supplement intake based on your body's individual needs guided by your unique biological makeup. Optimization is
all about personalization. However, getting your doctor on board with getting a test you need can
be a challenge sometimes. Not all practitioners are open to suggestions from their patients.
I've been dismissing these requests for additional tests as unnecessary or too expensive or not
covered by your insurance. But don't let that turn you away. There are a lot of options out there, like Function Health. I
co-founded Function to help put the power back in the patient's hands, offering a comprehensive look
at over 110 biomarkers for less than 500 bucks a year. We're talking about critical nutrients like
vitamin D and magnesium, plus detailed assessments including omega-3 levels, ferritin, zinc, iron, selenium, as well as C-reactive protein for inflammation, a lipid profile that's
way deeper than you'd get at your average checkup, extensive panels covering sex hormones,
thyroid hormones, immune markers, and lots more. So with that in mind, there's a lot of
controversy around supplementation. Should you supplement? Should you not? Is it a waste of
money? Is it worth it? Can you get what you need from food
alone? Well, let's get into those questions. Why do we need to supplement? Well, there's a lot of
reasons, and I joke that nobody really needs supplements, but only under certain conditions.
One, they need to hunt and gather their own wild food. Two, they need to drink only pure, clean
water, breathe pure, clean air, be exposed to no environmental toxins, wake up with the sun, go to bed with the sun, have no chronic stress. And if that describes
you, then no, you do not need supplements. But everybody else, because of a lot of reasons I'm
going to detail, we need to take supplements. Now, not surprising, 95% of the US population
and 2 billion people around the world have at least one nutrient deficiency.
I mean, even if you're eating the perfect diet, and let's just define that as a whole foods,
unprocessed diet, fruits and vegetables, and so forth. Now, maybe if you eat only regenerative
food from a regenerative farm, you might do better, but basically that's very hard to get
at this point. So even if we ate completely or perfectly all organic, whole foods, and ultra
processed food, basically the declining nutritional quality of our foods and the stresses
of our modern life and our toxic environment, it just increased the demands on our body for
extra nutrients and it makes it harder to get what we need from food alone. So you need a lot
to get the nutrients needed for optimal health and people just don't want to spend that much time
eating or thinking about food. And that's where it's important to really supplement,
to fill any nutrient gaps, not just avoid deficiency diseases, but to achieve optimal health. By the way, most of the nutritional standards, the dietary
reference intakes, or we call the RDAs, are based on avoiding a deficiency disease. So how much
vitamin C do you need to not get scurvy? Not very much. How much vitamin D do you need to not get rickets? 30 units. How much vitamin D do you need for optimal health and immunity? Maybe 3,000 or
5,000, maybe 10 or 100 times that, right? We need to kind of move our thinking from addressing
deficiencies to optimizing health, not just basically taking enough so you don't get scurvy,
right? Deficiency symptoms look different for everybody, and it can depend on the person, their unique genetic background, the nutrient
or combinations they're missing. For some people, it can show up as joint pain or migraines, like
low magnesium or depression. I had a guy who was just very depleted in folate and B12, and he was
severely depressed. Supplement him, and boom, he's back. It doesn't mean that all cases of depression
are caused by that, but it's one of the factors. So for other people, it can show up as rashes or skin conditions. For example, if you're low
in omega-3 fats, you get patchy, dry, scaly spits all over. If you get vitamin A deficiency,
you get little bumps on the back of your arm. Your metabolism will slow down. For example,
if you don't have iodine or zinc or selenium, for example, you might not be able to make your
thyroid properly, kind of brain fog from just not being able to make neurotransmitters.
So there's a lot of things that go wrong
that we think are just normal symptoms,
but that are really because of nutrient deficiencies.
Now there's some basic supplements that I talk about a lot,
no matter your age, your race, your sex, your health goals,
you want to add these to your routine
and you will notice a difference.
So what is the basic supplement plan I recommend?
Well, it's a multivitamin.
Technically a multivitamin and Technically, a multivitamin and
multimineral, like a safety net. It ensures you receive a baseline of the essential vitamins and
minerals every day. It supports your overall nutrient adequacy, especially in populations
with deficiencies, which is pretty much over everybody, or increased needs that are based on
particular issues, maybe pregnancy, or if you're older, vegetarian or vegan, those with chronic
disease, severe dietary restrictions. You know, especially as you're older, vegetarian or vegan, those with chronic disease,
severe dietary restrictions. You know, especially as we get older, we may not absorb things as well.
We may have low stomach acid, not get B12. If you're vegan, for example, I see universally B12,
iodine, often zinc, vitamin A, omega-3s, all low, and vitamin D, iron. It's kind of a disaster for
most vegans if you actually check under the hood. Now,
if you're taking supplements, fine, great. But if you're vegan, you make sure you take plenty of
the right supplements and you check your levels. And I encourage you to do a functional health
panel because you might be surprised at what you find. I've been treating people for 30 years,
testing everybody's nutritional status. And this is not an anomaly. This is pretty much standard.
And even if you're trying to be a healthy vegan, it's still hard.
So research shows that basically multivitamin every day
can help support brain health,
slow cognitive aging, boost memory.
The study published in the American Journal
of Clinical Nutrition just this year
reports that a daily multivitamin supplementation
over a period of two years
significantly improved global cognition
and episodic memory.
Now the study authors estimated
that daily supplementation had delayed cognitive aging by about two years compared to those who just
received a placebo. Now, this is a randomized controlled trial of a multivitamin and a placebo.
This is the best kind of study. It's not a correlation study. And, you know, a lot of
doctors say, oh, well, you know, supplements don't work or there's no data, there's no evidence.
It depends where you look, right? I would say, there's not that there's no evidence,
they just haven't looked for it.
You know, they say, oh, it caused expensive urine.
I'm like, well, yeah, you pee out what you don't need,
but does that mean you shouldn't drink water
because you urinate, you just pee out what you don't need?
I mean, that doesn't make any sense, right?
Or that you shouldn't eat
because you poop out stuff you don't need?
Well, no, your body takes up what it needs
and gets rid of the rest.
Now, what about women?
Well, if you're a woman, you might be iron deficient
or anemic, especially if you don't eat red meat or you're vegan or you have heavy periods,
and you probably need iron in your menstruating years. There might be some in your multi, but
mostly if you're not and you should get your levels checked, you want to make sure you get
enough through a supplement. Probably iron bisglycinate is the most bioavailable form.
And again, you know,
you can test. And one of the most important things to know is your ferritin, not just your iron
level, but your ferritin, which is your iron stores. And most doctors want to check that,
but it's important because if your level is under 45, it's going to affect your health,
even though the reference range on the lab says 16 or above is normal. 45 or above should be the
normal range or the optimal range because under 45 you get hair
loss you get fatigue you get sleep disruption and many other things so really important to get your
ferret levels up uh this is really important why because you need to make your blood from that your
hemoglobin energy production cognition immune function all are dependent on iron and most
multivitamin brands really don't contain enough iron, even the good ones.
So that's because you can get iron overloads.
You don't wanna take too much, but you wanna take enough.
So I would supplement with iron bisglycinate,
which is, I mentioned, the most bioavailable form.
There's great versions from Thorne and Pure Encapsulations.
If you're not getting enough fruits and veggies,
by the way, 90% of people aren't in America,
they're missing out on powerful benefits
of something called polyphenols.
Now there's also other stuff we need that we're not getting from our modern industrial food
supply, and that's phytochemicals. If you're not eating enough fruits and veggies, and 90%
of Americans are not, you're probably missing out on the most powerful healing benefits
of polyphenols. Now, conventional produce has much fewer phytochemicals than organic produce,
and obviously, regenerative produce has more than organic and
wild has more than regenerative. So wild strawberries are amazing. They're small, but
they are full of phytochemicals because also flavor follows phytochemical richness. The more
flavorful a food is, the more phytochemicals it has and the better it is for you. So now,
even if you were close to the recommended five servings a day of fruits and vegetables, which is
barely enough, like that's just bare minimum, it should be more like 10 recommended five servings a day of fruits and vegetables, which is barely enough,
like that's just bare minimum.
It should be more like 10 to 18 servings, not five to nine.
If you sort of do follow the guidelines,
which is the dietary guidelines of 2020 to 2025,
it's too low.
Polyphenols are important because they support
the gut microbiome, your immune system, inflammation,
their overall health, healthy aging,
all the longevity switches I talked about
in my book, Young Forever. A lot of them are controlled by these phytochemicals, whether it's green tea
compounds, berberine from different plants, or all the weird things that can have profound effects
like bitter melon is a weird Chinese vegetable, but that's great for regulating blood sugar,
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What else should you be taking?
Well, omega-3 fatty acids.
90 plus percent of Americans are low on this.
And this is a critical fat
that makes up your cell membranes,
your brain that regulates
immunity, inflammation, gut microbiome health, pretty much everything.
Because there's not many essential fats and we don't need them in large amounts, but omega-3
fats are essential, meaning we cannot get them unless we get them from our diet, right?
There are things we have to eat as opposed to fats we can make ourself.
90% of Americans, as I mentioned, are not getting the recommended amounts of omega-3s,
which is one or two servings of fatty fish a week.
We're not eating enough fish or seafood.
And our ancestral diet used to be really different in the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3s.
We need omega-6s too, but we used to be having a ratio of 2 to 1 of omega-6 to omega-3s.
Now we're probably 20 to one.
And that's pretty scary.
Omega-6 fats are really essential for the neurodevelopment of the brain and cognitive
health and cellular health.
But we're eating way too much of those because of all the processed seed oils that are in
our ultra-processed food and sad diet.
And these are bad, right?
These refined oils that are things that are relatively new to nature
in terms of how we're processing them,
how we grow them.
They're full of toxins, glyphosate, hexane,
oxidized, unstable oils, soybean, canola, sunflower.
It doesn't mean that you can't have some of these omega-6s
or use some of these in your kitchen,
but you wanna use the right forms
and you don't wanna to use too much.
Psychosis, Alzheimer's, dementia,
all connected to low levels of omega-3s
and higher omega-6s.
Fish oil supplementation is actually associated
with a lower risk of dementia.
Omega-3 deficiency is also common in skin conditions
like eczema, psoriasis, even just dry, patchy skin,
thinning hair, cracked nails, all kinds of stuff. Just
having healthy skin is amazing. So I take omega-3s. My nails are really hard. They're not
like soft and brittle and cracky. And if you're low, it can even accelerate other inflammatory
conditions like arthritis. So you want to increase and maintain your levels of omega-3s. You have to
eat at least two servings of small, low-mer low mercury, cold water fish a week. And that's
mackerel, anchovies, sardines, and herring, which are not people's favorite. Sometimes salmon's okay,
but again, that can be a little big and have heavy metals. You're not sure where you get them,
if it's harm raised or not. There are plant-based omega-3s, ALA, which is a plant form of omega-3s.
And it's a great source of ALA is like walnuts and chia seeds and so forth,
but they don't really work to get to the full needs that we need for omega-3s because they
don't get converted as well as they should. Now, if you're vegan or vegetarian, you want to
supplement with high-quality alga oil, but algae only has DHA. So there are other forms of EPA that
are plant-based that I've seen. I've tested
people who've been using them. I don't see them reflected in their blood work. So I'm a little
kind of dubious about it, but there's a lot of options for you out there. Make sure you look
for ones that are carrageenan-free. Carrageenan is a toxin to the gut lining. It's made from
seaweed, but it's definitely an emulsifier that makes your gut leaky,
and you want to stay away from that. All right, what else do you need? You got your multivitamin,
your fish oil, vitamin D. Now, vitamin D is critical for hundreds and hundreds of biochemical reactions and gene expressions, lots of things, and infects almost every system in your body.
It's more of a pro-hormone than a vitamin. Now, the pandemic helped shine a light on how crucial this macronutrient is for overall
health and immunity.
Now, severe vitamin D deficiency, you get this, that's less than 25.
And often in some labs still have 20 as a reference range, or most are 30.
When you had a vitamin D deficiency of 25 or less, it was associated with an increased
severity of COVID disease, a higher rate of ICU admission, a higher rate of death,
more likely to get infected, and more likely to be hospitalized. And guess what, folks? An estimated
1 billion people worldwide are living with a vitamin D deficiency. Again, all the references
are in. If you want to check my facts, go ahead. Now, 95% of US adults are deficient in vitamin D
from the journal Nutrients. And
when we're talking about deficient, we don't necessarily mean deficient according to the
reference range of a lab, but what's optimal, right? Although probably 80% are low at the level
that the lab says to if you're not taking any vitamin D and you're not in the sun.
Now, it does so much, right? It functions not just like a vitamin, but more like a hormone.
Affects the expression of more than a thousand genes.
It's critical for bone health, for bone density, for skin health, hormonal health,
muscle function, cognitive health, mental health, depression. You've heard of SAD or the seasonal affective disorder.
That's because of low vitamin D in the winter, your gut health, and protecting against chronic
disease.
We used to eat a lot of these small fatty fish
because most of us lived along coastal areas
or you can get them from wild mushrooms,
but we don't eat those fish
or those things that much anymore.
So you can get it from salmon, mackerel, sardines,
and herring, cod liver oil, egg yolks, beef liver,
mushrooms like porcini is the highest.
The body makes also vitamin D internally on its own,
but not enough, right? Vitamin D, depending on you and your genetics and your absorption,
your dose should be between 1,000 to 5,000 units a day. Some people need 10,000. You can take a lot
more if you're deficient to load up the tank rather than just sort of slowly increasing. You
can take 10,000 a day
or 20,000 a day for a week or two or three. They did a study with young men who were healthy,
gave them 10,000 a day for three months and there was no adverse effects. The form you want to take
is vitamin D3. That's the right form. And a lot of doctors prescribe the wrong form of vitamin D2,
which isn't as well utilized or converted. You need to take it with fat to boost absorption.
So don't take it on an empty stomach. You want to go for quality fat to boost absorption. So don't take it on empty stomach.
You want to go for quality, right? You don't want ones that are just off the shelf from your
grocery store or your average pharmacy. Maybe Whole Foods and health food stores have higher
quality brands, but you want to make sure you get the right products. A lot of the supplements on
the market are just crap and there's no regulation. What else? Magnesium.
Magnesium is so important and so many of us are low or deficient.
It may be between 50 to 70% depending on how you look.
Magnesium is involved in over 600 enzymatic reactions to the body.
So every chemical process requires an enzyme and this just keeps the wheels of your biochemical machinery going.
And if you're low, you're just not working out.
60% of Americans are deficient, meaning that 600 enzymatic reactions can't function optimally
every day in these people. Magnesium is an important electrolyte gatekeeper of our cells.
It lets, for example, potassium and calcium in the cells to conduct electrical currents that
are responsible for everything, like our heartbeat, the contraction and relaxation of our muscles, our nerve firing, neuroplasticity,
ATP production, the production of energy in our cells,
DNA repair, and lots more.
It also plays a critical role
in hormone and neurotransmitter synthesis,
including GABA, which is an anxiety-preventing
neurotransmitter, serotonin, which is for depression,
for example, happy mood chemical,
dopamine for focus. It also regulates sleep, relaxation, mood, behavior, blood sugar,
critically needs magnesium to be properly regulated. It also activates vitamin D. So if
we don't have magnesium, we can't use vitamin D and lots more. Type 2 diabetics tend to be more
magnesium deficient than non-diabetics. And supplementation can actually help prevent
diabetes and improve blood sugar control. I mean, studies showing that supplementing with just 250
milligrams of magnesium daily can have a big impact on hemoglobin A1c, which is the average
blood sugar, your insulin resistance, and your blood sugar control just after three months.
Now, because magnesium is involved in so much, deficiency puts us at
risk for a lot of problems. Anxiety, insomnia, headaches, hormone imbalances, constipation,
high blood pressure, painful PMS with cramping, mood swings, vitamin D deficiency, right?
My mentor, Sidney Baker, said anything that twitches or cramps is a magnesium deficiency,
whether it's constipation, palpitations, anxiety, irritability, muscle twitching,
you name it, it's probably a magnesium deficiency.
Actually, there was an article in the New England Journal reviewing magnesium deficiency
just last week, which is great.
And I encourage you to check it out.
But thank God that at least major medical journals are now recognizing what a big issue
this is.
And by the way, when we look at our culture,
it's a magnesium losing society, right? It's a magnesium losing culture. When we do things like
drink caffeine or alcohol or eat foods high in sugar or starch or have chronic stress, which I'm
sure no one out there listening has, you lose magnesium. There was one study where they took victims of the Bosnian War in Kosovo
and they went to a really stressed,
they actually measured their urinary magnesium
and found they were much higher levels
of urinary magnesium than average people
who weren't stressed.
And that means when you're stressed,
you pee out magnesium.
And the magnesium deficiency makes you more stressed
because it's the relaxation mineral.
One of my hacks is taking an Epsom salt bath. You can absorb it through your skin. That helps you relax. But there's a
lot of foods that have magnesium. Pumpkin seeds, almonds, spinach, cashews, avocado, dark chocolate.
And it's hard to get enough magnesium from food. Why? Well, as I mentioned before,
our declining soil quality, it's bound to anti-nutrients in our diet like phytates from
beans and some grains. And
there's a lot of different forms of magnesium. So, you know, depending on what your needs are
and what your issues are, I'd recommend different forms. For example, magnesium glycinate by Pure
Encapsulations is great. And you can take, you know, about 120 milligrams in a pill. You can take,
you know, two to four of those a day. That's a good one. It doesn't just sort of generally
applicable and also helps with sleep. What else? Okay, multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, magnesium,
and a probiotic is the next group.
Now, our gut health is so tied to your overall health.
We know we've talked about a lot on the podcast,
but your gut microbiome is comprised of trillions
of different bacteria that work together to support
or to inhibit your overall health, right?
Good bugs are good for
you. Bad bugs are bad for you. Bad bacteria cause something called dysbiosis, which is an imbalance
in the gut flora where you grow too many bad bugs, not of good bugs. That leads to inflammation,
to a leaky gut, to systemic inflammation, to food sensitivities, to all kinds of stuff.
And it increases the risk for chronic diseases across the board, from heart disease to cancer, diabetes to obesity, as well as allergy, asthma, autoimmunity, and lots, lots more.
Now, good bacteria promote a healthy immune system, and they lower inflammation, and they
protect against chronic disease. So you want to get a probiotic. And a probiotic can introduce
good bacteria into your gut, and that helps support digestion, regular pooping, immunity,
lowering your inflammation state, can reduce bloating. Although if you do have bacterial
overgrowth, you want to be careful because probiotics can make it worse temporarily until
you fix it. But it overall improves GI health. Now there are other nutrients that you might want
to add in here and there. One of them that I certainly think is helpful as you get older
and when you need to build muscle is creatine. Creatine is one
of the most well-researched, safest, and most effective supplements on the market. So what is
it? Well, creatine is a compound that our bodies naturally produce. It's also found in certain
foods like animal proteins, meat, and fish. It's primarily stored in muscles and in smaller amounts
in the brain and heart. Creatine is well-known for helping build lean muscle. And when paired
with resistance training, meaning strength training, it's super beneficial in preventing
muscle loss or sarcopenia, reducing falls and fracture risks as you get older. Now, creatine
may help enhance insulin sensitivity. It can improve the function efficacy of glucose transporters in
the muscle, meaning it's better to regulate your blood sugar and also your fat tissues,
which is great for people with metabolic issues. And studies have shown that supplemental
creatine could benefit sedentary people or those with metabolic dysfunction by enhancing insulin
sensitivity, which is something we mostly have. I think probably 93% of Americans have a problem
with their insulin regulation. Evidence shows that a high intake of creatine is linked to a 50% lower risk of depression,
improved mood, particularly in populations that consume less meat. Those are my top supplements,
right? Multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, magnesium, probiotics, and creatine. Those are the ones
I certainly take every day. And I think everybody needs to take on a regular basis. I have links to
all the supplements in the show notes. If you're interested in what supplements I take
for longevity, check out my episode on diet,
supplements, and lifestyle routine for myself.
The link will be in the show notes,
and I'll catch you next time.
Thanks for listening today.
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see you next time on The Doctor's Pharmacy. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at
the Altra Wellness Center and my work at Cleveland Clinic and Function Health, where I'm the chief medical officer.
This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions, and neither myself nor the podcast
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This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical
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medical or other professional advice or services.
Now, if you're looking for your help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical
practitioner. You can come see us at the Ultra Wellness Center in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Just go to ultrawellnesscenter.com.
If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner near you, you can visit
ifm.org and search, find a practitioner database.
It's important that you have someone in your corner who is trained, who's a