Value in vitamin and mineral supplements

[lynxville]

On NBC yesterday they were talking about butter and said in LDL there is soft LDL and clogging LDL and butter is soft, so here we go again eat butter.

 

[Leonidas]

There is difference between a disease caused by a vitamin deficiency, and being sub-optimal in certain vitamins and minerals.

Everything I do in regard to my health and fitness is a n=1 experiment. When I change something significant in my diet, I track how I feel, look and perform. Plus I routinely get blood work done to track biomarkers for health and disease.

Everybody is different to some degree, and you have to go with what works for you.

 

[TromboneAl]

Everything I do in regard to my health and fitness is a n=1 experiment. When I change something significant in my diet, I track how I feel, look and perform. Plus I routinely get blood work done to track biomarkers for health and disease.

Everybody is different to some degree, and you have to go with what works for you.

Same here, and I guess I'm a little famous here for my blood pressure experiments.

The problems I've found with the N=1 experiments, are:

1. It's impossible to hold all the other variables in your life constant. For example, you want to check out Vitamin Z and you start taking it. But you also may be starting some new exercise routine, or be changing your eating habits. I think that one of my observations about blood pressure was related more to the time of year than to the supplement changes:

2. There can be a lot of random variability in your measurements. You don't have a lot of other subjects to even things out.

3. I don't trust my subjective measurements of "this makes me feel/perform better/worse.

4. I've seen significant changes in things even without any treatment. If these changes had occurred during one of my experiments, I would have been misled as to the cause. For example, I used to have a sore knee which was a problem when driving long distances. That had disappeared for no apparent reason.

N=1 experiments are still useful. I bought some MCT oil. Many say it gives you a burst of energy, improves athletic performance, blah blah. I thought it was worth a little try and: nothing. If there were even a small effect, I would have noticed. People put it in coffee, and I bet the only effect they are seeing is from the caffeine.

 

[JPatrick]

While not a supplement, one of the best practices I've found is ensuring that I get 8 glasses of water in my body daily. Lots of people don't because 8 glasses is no small amount.
I believe getting properly hydrated cured a chronic sinus problem I had. I sleep better and just generally feel better.
Hail H2O!!

 

[GravitySucks]

One multi vitamin, 2000 IU D3, 1000 mg fish oil, 4 glucosemine w/ msm. Blood tests show low D levels without the supplement. (Especially in Winter. Live far north.)The multi vitamin is a probably can't hurt item. I do notice foggy brain when I don't take the fish oil, but it was assigned for HDL level issues. I also notice more joint pain when I forget the glucosamine. My last dog was on glucosamine and was able to walk again for two more years, hope it keeps me moving.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Leonidas]

Same here, and I guess I'm a little famous here for my blood pressure experiments....N=1 experiments are still useful. I bought some MCT oil. Many say it gives you a burst of energy, improves athletic performance, blah blah. I thought it was worth a little try and: nothing. If there were even a small effect, I would have noticed. People put it in coffee, and I bet the only effect they are seeing is from the caffeine.

Actually, MCT oil was one of my n=1 successes.

Two years ago I had bulked up while making strength gains and wanted to get rid of some of the body fat while keeping muscle. That's difficult, because the body loves to hang on to fat and will even sacrifice muscle in order to protect the fat. I went very low carb and added in more LISS cardio. It worked to a point but then stalled. I tinkered around with different ideas, like adding in interval training to restart the process, but without success. MCT oil and grass fed butter in coffee restarted the process and in a few days I saw the fat melt away while hanging on to the muscle.

This January, I was coming off two years of strength gains with 23% BF. I spent five months working with a nutritionist and trainer to cut the fat. I got it to 20% and it stalled. The LISS cardio and very low carb diet got me to that point but then stalled for weeks, and then I started losing muscle. As soon as I started using MCT oil in my coffee again I began dropping 1/2% of body fat per week for the last 4 weeks, and I've gained all the lost muscle mass back and some more.

I think you made good points about the issues with n=1 experimentation - it's not going to work for everyone. And my method of self-experimentation is to science as a chainsaw is to a scalpel. That said, I've made tremendous improvements in my health without the use of prescription drugs.

It's all because I took one look at the path I was headed down and rejected what conventional medicine was offering. From that point on, it was all n=1 experimentation.

The majority of my n=1 success has been on better health via improving my nutrition, fitness and sleep, with supplements being used to support that, as opposed to supplements being the sole "fix" of anything.