Ten Supplements to Take Daily
▶ Getting sufficient vitamins
▶ Making sure minerals are on your list
▶ Adding other supplements to your regimen
The best way to get the important substances you need (vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, antioxidants — the list goes on and on) is through a balanced, wholesome, nutritional diet (one that is 100 percent organic whenever possible). But the fact is that many people have a very hard time eating enough of the right kinds of foods to get the substances they need in the correct quantities. That’s why I recommend that you strongly consider using supplements to increase the amounts of critical materials your body must have to perform at its very best.
This chapter gives you ten suggestions for supplements that you can take every day to improve your health. I know it may seem overwhelming to think about taking ten (or more) different supplements each day, but keep in mind that doing so can be a real benefit to both your body and mind. Plus, it may help you to live longer and healthier. That said, if you know that you’re getting a good amount of some of these substances in your diet and you’re interested in keeping the amount of supplements you’re taking relatively low, you can adjust your supplement regimen accordingly. For example, if you eat plenty of oily, cold-water fish, you may not need to supplement with omega-3 fatty acids. Think about your diet, and supplement in an appropriate way to make certain you’re giving your body what it needs.
Here’s one very important note to keep in mind when you’re thinking about supplements: The daily recommended allowances for vitamins, minerals, and other substances that you see on food labels don’t mean a whole lot. These guidelines show you the minimum amounts necessary for your body to keep on keepin’ on, but they don’t tell you what amounts you need for your body to go above and beyond that base level.
One more thing: If you want advice on how to select supplements, flip back to Chapter 5.
A good, comprehensive multivitamin should be the foundation for your supplement regimen. Your body absolutely must have 14 vitamins in order to function properly, and chances are you don’t get all 14 in the amounts you need from your diet. It is possible to get all your vitamins from food, but you have to eat a diet that is much healthier than most people even aspire to. (You have to eat loads and loads of produce — mostly vegetables — and choose only 100 percent organic varieties.) For more information about all the vitamins you need, flip back to Chapter 17.
Some people take a once-a-day multivitamin. While that’s definitely better than taking nothing at all, the pill probably doesn’t include high enough doses of each of the vitamins you need. How do I know? If a once-a-day vita- min contained adequately high doses of all 14 essential vitamins, it would have to be at least as big as a golf ball. Most of the multivitamins that offer comprehensive vitamin coverage require you to take several pills a day. Four capsules or pills a day is a pretty standard number.
A range of good brands and reasonably priced options is available. You want to find a company that does third-party analysis (see Chapter 5). Most of the better products are not sold over the counter and must be purchased through an integrative physician or a pharmacy that is involved in natural wellness.
Make sure the multivitamin you choose includes a good calcium source, and make sure that it comes as calcium hydroxyl apatite and not calcium carbon- ate. You don’t necessarily have to understand the differences between the two; just make sure your multivitamin includes the former and not the latter.
Multimineral
In total, you need to supply your body with 16 different minerals if you want it to perform at an optimal level. I won’t list them here — check out Chapter 17 for a rundown — but rest assured that getting anything less than all 16 means a compromise for your health.
Multimineral supplements are easy to find, and in many cases you can find multivitamin/multimineral combination supplements. These options can be tricky, and you need to make sure that if you choose to go that route you buy an option that includes all 14 vitamins and all 16 minerals. (That’s quite a lot!)
When you’re picking out a multimineral supplement, go with one that contains chelated minerals. I’ll spare you all the boring details of the process that creates chelated minerals. But keep in mind that unless you’re getting chelated minerals, you’re probably paying for minerals that end up in your toilet instead of in your body’s important systems.
Don’t take a multimineral supplement that comes from a clay source. These products are not chelated, and they contain silver, tin, and nickel. In some cases they even list lead as an ingredient!
Omega-3 Fatty Acids
You’ve probably heard or read about omega-3 fatty acids in the news recently. The importance of this essential fatty acid has been getting a lot of press, and for good reason. It’s one of those substances that your body has to have to survive and thrive, and despite all the wonderfully complex chemical processes your body can do, it can’t manufacture omega-3 fatty acids.
The best dietary source of omega-3s is organic beef. Fish is the next best source. You should eat fish as part of a healthy diet, but unless you’re eating wild Alaskan salmon or one of the other few types of fish that don’t commonly contain high levels of mercury, chances are you’re getting a very unhealthy dose of toxins along with your omega-3 fatty acids.
To steer clear of mercury but still get your omega-3s, supplement with liquid fish oil or a capsule or softgel. Take one gram twice a day to get what you need.
Resveratrol
Resveratrol is a powerful antioxidant, and I recommend that everyone get a dose of it each day. Resveratrol has developed a much higher profile since a Harvard Medical School study a few years ago showed a pretty dramatic increase in the health and lifespan of mice when they were given resveratrol in addition to their diets. If you read up on this antioxidant, you’ll probably see that it is present in red wine, and that’s the truth. (It’s also present in grape skins.) But if you wanted to get a significant dose of resveratrol from red wine alone, you’d have to glug a few hundred bottles of the stuff per day, and that would kill you long before you got to enjoy any benefits of resveratrol.
The good news is that you can buy resveratrol supplements at many health food stores and at any good vitamin retailer, either in person or online. You’ll see it listed either as resveratrol or red wine extract. I recommend getting 30 milligrams per day, which should be rather easy given the breadth of supplement options on the market.
If you take a good multivitamin, you’re probably getting a good amount of vitamin C each day. But don’t think for a second that you’re getting all that your body needs to really be able to operate on a high level.
I recommend taking a 1,000-milligram vitamin C supplement twice each day. I know that sounds like a lot, but if you’ve read much of this book, you know that I believe very firmly that vitamin C is a huge boon for your good health. Even though it’s present in lots of fruits and vegetables, it can still be difficult to get enough of the stuff in your diet. Hundreds (perhaps thousands) of vitamin C supplement options are available, so do some research and talk to your integrative doctor to find out which ones are right for you.
When you’re fighting an illness, take 8,000 milligrams of vitamin C each day instead of the usual 2,000 milligrams.
Vitamin B Complex
The term vitamin B complex refers to all the B vitamins: B1, B2, B3, B5,B6, B7, B9, and B12. Several of the B vitamins have other commonly used names — riboflavin and niacin are two good examples — and you can read all about those names, as well as my dosage recommendations, in Chapter 17.
The range of important functions that the vitamin B complex plays in your body is staggering, and I wouldn’t even attempt to cover all the details here. Just know that if you want to be healthy and live a long, comfortable life, you’d better plan on getting plenty of B vitamins.
I think it’s a good idea to take a vitamin B complex supplement in addition to your multivitamin every day. You can find such a supplement that will give you what you need in only one dose per day. Check out Chapter 17 to get my recommendations on how much of each of the B complex vitamins to get every day.
Magnesium
Several solid studies done over the course of the last few years have shown very strong connections between high levels of magnesium intake and the avoidance of cardiovascular illness. People who get plenty of magnesium — in their diets and through supplementing — commonly have a lower heart disease risk.
In addition, magnesium is involved in about 300 different biochemical reactions that take place in your body, so you can see why it’s a good idea to make sure you’re getting enough of it. To be certain, take a supplement that gives you 600 milligrams per day.
Sulforaphane
Not everyone has heard of sulforaphane, and that’s too bad. It’s been making headlines on a pretty regular basis lately, and I hope that continues, because I think everyone should be taking it as a supplement regularly.
Recent studies have indicated that sulforaphane helps to thwart some kinds of cancer and can slow tumor development. Other studies show that sulfora- phane reduces the amount of H. pylori bacteria in the stomach, and that bacterium causes stomach lining inflammation and ulcers. If those aren’t good reasons to take sulforaphane each day, I don’t know what are.
You can get sulforaphane in supplement form in two ways: broccoli seed extract or straight sulforaphane. If you go with the latter, shoot for 500 milligrams per day. If the former is your preferred sulforaphane supplement, try to get 30 milligrams every day.
Vitamin E
Like vitamin C and the vitamin B complex, vitamin E is something that will almost certainly be included in your multivitamin regimen but probably not in high enough amounts. You can see continuing health benefits of supple- menting with vitamin E up to 800 milligrams per day, so don’t be afraid to get that much.
What are some of the health benefits of taking additional vitamin E? First, vitamin E has powerful antioxidant effects, and if you check out Chapter 5 you’ll know how important antioxidants are to your total health. But vitamin E does all sorts of other good things for your body as well, from boosting your immune system to keeping your blood vessels in tip-top shape.
Do yourself a huge favor, and don’t scrimp on the vitamin E.
You’ll often see alpha-lipoic acid referred to as ALA. It’s a top-notch antioxidant that helps your body fight disease and keeps your various cells functioning at a high level.
I always suggest to my patients that they take an ALA supplement, and I recommend finding a capsule form that provides about 800 milligrams per day. That number has been shown to offer many health benefits without being overwhelming or wasteful in the body. You can find ALA supplements at any good health food store and at your local vitamin retailer.
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