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720 sats \ 10 replies \ @Undisciplined 26 Jan 2024 \ on: Do you supplement? What supplements do you take? health
I generally try to work nutrients into my diet rather than supplementing. There are two supplements that I think most people need to take, though, in order to get optimal amounts:
- Vitamin D3 in the winter for those in temperate latitudes. Otherwise, get some sun.
- Vitamin B12 is produced by bacteria and one of the tradeoffs of modern hygiene/sanitation is low B12 consumption. This might be unnecessary if you eat enough fermented foods, but I'm not sure.
I'd add some w-3 as a "you almost certainly need to supplement this" category.
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Because modern diets are so inflammatory or because they're so high in omega 6?
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Both.
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I go out of my way to get a high w-3 balance in my diet. Do you think I might be overlooking something?
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If you're making an effort you're probably doing pretty well.
Last I checked into this in any depth, there was a massive amount of disagreement over what w-3 levels should be, esp given current w-6 levels, esp given nutrient leaching due to industrial food production (cmp w-3 content in game vs industrial meat, for instance), esp given other pro-inflammatory covariates of modern industrialized lifestyles. Nutrition science is nearly the most thankless of all the quasi-sciences, so I certainly don't know the truth.
I just thought of this, but: are you making an exception to veganism wrt w-3 supplementation, or do you get some vegetable source of it? I'd be curious what that is, if the latter. That might be a thing to consider making an exception over, since my vague sense from having looked into this deeply twenty years ago is that vegetable versions would be drastically sub-optimal; but again, talking 65% out of my ass here.
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The highest w-3 foods are flax and chia seeds. Some other nuts and seeds have really good w-3/w-6 ratios.
My understanding is that the ratio is most important, but like you say it's hard to pin that down very accurately. The most common number I see is 1:4, but I recall seeing 1:1.6. Since my diet is not very inflammatory I'm ok with targeting the 1:4.
You're right that plant sources are sub-optimal, but our bodies are capable of converting between the different forms of w-3. With the quantity of w-3 I consume, I'm pretty sure I'm producing sufficient levels of those particular forms.
maybe that's why Nutritional Yeast is so awesome for getting B-vitamins.
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We go through a ton of nutritional yeast. Even so, I think it's best to take a B-12 supplement.
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