Are Supplements Necessary? Yes, Even if You Eat Healthy!

Do I need to take supplements? And for the rest of my life?

There are a lot of misconceptions about supplements. Not in the least from governments, various MDs, and health experts. 

Let’s start by saying that supplements are a complex matter. Ignorance and oversimplification are important reasons why there is so much conflicting advice.

We believe it’s necessary to take supplements, and this for the rest of our lives.

Scientifically speaking, there are strong arguments for this:

• Human bodies are not very well made by nature (evolution) to get all the nutrients they need for optimal long health. For example, compared to fish, plants, and most animals, humans are very bad at absorbing iron – iron deficiency has plagued humanity since its dawn. Humans are one of the very few animals that cannot make vitamin C themselves and need to get it from their diet. Throughout evolution, our species have been plagued by deficiencies in many nutrients and minerals. Likely, our bodies are not well made to absorb all nutrients we need. This makes sense, given evolution mostly creates suboptimal, “made-do” designs, not optimal ones.

• Today, we eat in a completely different way than our ancestors, meaning our diets are that much more deficient in nutrients. Prehistoric, pre-agricultural diets were much richer in many vitamins and minerals (but not in all – often, these diets could still lead to substantial deficiencies in specific nutrients, like iron or iodine, as we discussed before) compared to a typical Western diet today, consisting of grains, meat and a bit of vegetable at best. 

• Our current lifestyles are also considerably different compared to prehistoric times: we live much more indoors, so we don’t get enough exposure to the sun to produce vitamin D, for example. Alcohol consumption depletes levels of magnesium and B vitamins, smoking depletes antioxidants, stress depletes B vitamins and vitamin C, allergies and infections deplete vitamin A and zinc, etc. This requires us to have a higher intake of critical vitamins and minerals.  

• Current methods of agriculture and shipment (long-term storage) of foods lead to much lower amounts of vitamins and minerals in our food (especially magnesium, selenium, copper, vitamin E, etc), even compared to fifty years ago.

• The recommended intakes of most governments are in many cases (way) too low. They are based on suboptimal studies that last only for a short time to “detect” detrimental health effects, and do not look at required amounts for a long, optimal life.

• Even when consuming the recommended doses of their government, or consuming a “healthy diet”, people do not reach the levels needed for a long, healthy life.

• When we get older, our bodies become worse in taking up sufficient amounts of ingredients. Less gastric acid, aged skin, an aged gut, etc., cause less uptake and conversion of essential nutrients.

• Nature (evolution) is not really interested in us having a long lifespan. It’s interested in getting us to reproduce as quickly and much as possible. We, as humans, on the other hand, want to live as long and as healthy as possible. So we need to take matters in our own hands and make sure we take in sufficient amounts of nutrients for an optimal lifespan.

What further complicates this discussion is that both proponents and detractors of supplements are wrong (and right).

The detractors will claim that many studies show that supplements don’t improve health.

The problem, however, is that many studies do not last long enough to detect an effect (for example, many studies only last a few months or years while Alzheimer’s or heart disease take decades to arise).

Additionally, in many studies researchers use too low doses of nutrients (e.g. 100 mg of magnesium instead of 500 mg of magnesium per day), or the wrong form (e.g. magnesium oxide instead of magnesium malate), or the wrong combination (magnesium needs calcium, potassium, omega-3 fatty acids to function properly), etc.

They will also say that if you eat healthy, you don’t need supplements, but we explain here why this is not the case. Even if you eat healthy, it’s very difficult to get adequate levels of magnesium, iodine or vitamin D for example, let alone high enough levels for optimal health or for a long life.

The proponents of supplements on the other hand often look at supplements in a too simplistic way: they believe that taking magnesium or B vitamins will solve a lot of health problems, but often it’s not that simple: people are often deficient in many other vitamins, minerals and micronutrients (like omega-3 fatty acids or flavonoids), and taking some extra vitamins and minerals will often not really solve the problem, which also need to be tackled via a healthy diet, improving the microbiome, etc.

Nutrient Deficiencies and Inadequacies

There are innumerable micronutrients for which a deficiency can be detrimental; phytonutrients, which hold the potential to extend healthspan and lifespan beyond baseline; and the role that a diversity of plant-based foods and probiotic foods play in quality of life (the nine gut-organ axes) and disease (90% of all diseases can be traced back to the health of the gut microbiome, (Ahlawat et al., 2021)). Different diets can have vastly different outcomes for each of these considerations.

The 1937 recipient of the Nobel Prize, Albert Szent-Gyorgi, who first isolated vitamin C, once said, “The medical profession itself took a very narrow and wrong view. Lack of ascorbic acid caused scurvy, so if there is no scurvy there was not a lack of ascorbic acid. Nothing could be clearer than this. The only trouble was that scurvy is not a first symptom of a lack but a final collapse, a premortal syndrome and there is a wide gap between scurvy and full health.” Unfortunately, the medical profession still doesn’t seem to assign the proper weight to micronutrients in relation to optimal health and disease.

The US NHANES national survey of 16,444 individuals reported a high prevalence of inadequacies for multiple micronutrients (see table below). Nearly 100% of people have at least one nutrient inadequacy.

Nutrient deficiencies or excesses of specific molecules can cause a multitude of health issues in the short to mid-term (scurvy, metabolic syndrome, fatigue, psychological disorders, depression, high susceptibility to infections, etc.), and can have seemingly unlimited long-term consequences, most important of which is a substantial shortening of both healthspan and lifespan.

Timing also has a major impact on your health and longevity. That is, the time of day that you eat your meals and for how long you don’t.

Nutrition, and by extension, our metabolisms, fundamentally and significantly impact the aging process and the occurrence of diseases of aging, including cardiovascular disease, neurocognitive impairment (Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s), cancer, arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, macular degeneration, and innumerable other conditions. Nutrition impacts the likelihood and age at which these diseases take hold, the pace at which they develop, their severity, and their ultimate outcome. 

Put simply, not all diets are the same, and if we’re going to focus on nutritional biochemistry, we must include micronutrients.

Rethinking Nutritional Supplements

Supplement science is very complex: you need to take the right form, combination, dose, etc., of each nutrient. Often, the wrong form, dose, or combination is advised.

In general, we do believe that it’s important to take supplements, and this for your entire life. There are good scientific reasons for this. Deficiencies in important nutrients are rampant in society, reducing quality of life, eroding people’s health in the long term, and accelerating aging.

However, governments and others oversimplify nutrients, often basing themselves on suboptimal studies and short-term data, which leads to a lot of confusion and misunderstandings – all at the expense of our long-term health!

Learn more about the anti-aging supplement NOVOS Core