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The Truth About Popular Supplements in Your 30s and 40s · Doctor Turned Health Coach

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  The supplement industry, unfortunately, is not very well regulated,
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  and there are quite a lot of people who tend to profit by just going to a country like China,
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  getting that particular substance like NAD+, or magnesium, or fish oil,
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  and packaging it in such a nice way that they can actually market it to people
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  in affluent countries like the US.
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  And this creates a big problem because this space is not regulated and the claims
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  that are made are often mostly driven by hype.
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  So I'm not here to tell you that you should or shouldn't take a supplement.
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  I approach supplements like any prescription medication.
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  I need to know whether the person sitting across from me is going to benefit
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  from the supplement and what the harms are if they're not going to benefit from it.
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  And as always, if I can do it naturally, why would I use a supplement to treat my patient.
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  And just because supplements are readily available and they're inexpensive,
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  it doesn't make them better or worse than other alternative options.
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  The way this industry works is a good business person imports that supplement
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  from another country, they hire a marketing agency, and they publish a bunch of data,
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  they post a bunch of questions on Reddit and Facebook groups,
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  they pay a bunch of doctors to push that particular product,
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  and they will actually give them real research papers that are quite convincing.
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  These research papers often come out of countries where the research studies
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  are a little bit less regulated.
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  And of course, these research studies are always very positive.
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  Unfortunately, they're measuring not actual health outcomes,
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  they're measuring what we call surrogate outcomes.
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  They're basically saying, look, if I give you this NAD supplement,
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  this one molecule in your body increased.
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  Or if I give you this protein supplement, your urine product of protein increased.
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  The problem is that's not the way the human body works. We always want to look
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  at actual results from a study, from the human body in a study,
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  to make sure that that is actually the result that we're after.
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  So if I give somebody fish oil to lower their cholesterol, I don't want to just
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  see their cholesterol go lower.
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  I want to see their heart attack risk and stroke risk decrease.
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  And that's how a really good study is designed. And a bad study,
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  of course, is designed by just
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  showing, hey, look, I give you fish oil and your triglyceride is lower.
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  Well, that's not enough. That's what we call a surrogate marker.
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  And of course, there's tons of supplements out there for berberine and for hair
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  loss and for energy and for cortisol levels. But are they pure?
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  Are they coming from a good source? Even prescription medications that are generic
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  have very little regulation on them.
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  Fortunately, the FDA does oversee these medications, but there's nobody on site
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  to actually take a look at the manufacturing process, which is why even in this
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  highly regulated industry,
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  we see quite a few generic prescription drugs come up with really bad impurities.
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  When it comes to choosing a supplement, the best thing that you can do is look for solid research.
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  Follow people, experts online, who constantly are taking both sides of the argument
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  to assess a supplement's efficacy.
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  If you hear a doctor, an MD, DO, naturopath, any health expert,
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  tout the brilliance of a supplement and how effective it is,
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  chances are they're not giving you the nuanced picture
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  of that supplement and chances are they're not
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  painting the right picture and chances are they're profiting well
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  from giving out that supplement one of
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  the things that you can do of course is to look for research studies yourself
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  these studies should be should have a good power meaning there should be enough
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  people enrolled in that study the people who are enrolled should be double-blinded
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  meaning that the people who are giving these supplements and the placebo don't
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  know who's getting what.
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  And of course, there's tons of other criteria for a good, properly designed study.
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  And sadly, if you go do the search, you're going to see that there's not a lot
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  of such studies available.
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  Does it mean that just because a study is not there, the supplement doesn't work? No, of course not.
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  A supplement can still be incredibly effective, even if the study is not there.
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  But then we have to use other ways of assessing that supplement's effectiveness.
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  And we have to understand that just because you give a supplement,
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  it doesn't mean that it's going to do in the body what we expect it to do.
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  These are the subtleties, the nuances of how the human body works.
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  It's the same thing with prescription drugs. Sometimes I'll give a patient a
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  prescription drug and it doesn't work.
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  And I give it to another person and it works great because our genetics,
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  our molecular chemistry, everything is very subtle and nuanced.
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  And all of those things are just not easy to tease out in all of the research studies.
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  Whenever you have a health concern and you feel like you need a supplement to
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  address it, first ask yourself, what are some lifestyle ways that you can attempt
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  to help improve that particular health outcome?
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  Why? Because lifestyle changes have been proven over and over and over again
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  to be incredibly effective.
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  So the lifestyle choices include stress management, building good relationships
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  with others, having a good self-talk inside your brain, getting enough sleep,
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  exercising, good nutrition, meditation, all of these things.
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  These have been proven, proven to be effective.
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  Now, if that's not enough, then we can start looking at particular nutrients
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  in your food that you can maximize.
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  And finally, if that's not enough, absolutely. A good supplement from a good
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  third-party tested company can be a great, great asset.