EPISODE NOTES: – Do supplements actually work? Are they worth the money? – EC Synkowski is the owner of OptimizeMe …
10 Comments
I’ve listened happily and learned so much from your podcasts but this one was disappointing. As a mom of twins that were developmentally delayed, I fully recovered one through supplementation and make tremendous gains with the other (they’re 16 and I’ve been on a biomed journey with them 13 years). Omega 3 (fish oil), omega 9 (olive oil), and vitamins D, C and B’s have been a total game changer for gut and brain health. It’s not about avoiding death, it’s about health. I have researched a lot… but seeing first hand the way supplements affect a child proved to me they’re worth it. It might not prove causation but whatever.
I was super keen for this episode but came away super disappointed. I don’t want to put words into ECs mouth or draw incorrect conclusions about her entire stance on supplements from a single 90min podcast but not everyone takes supplements for preventative health, not all supplement consumption is for esoteric long term health benefits. I was disappointed to hear only the two big possible reasons (cardiovascular diseases and cancer) keep coming up as flawed reasons for supplementation.
What about quality of life in the here and now: Fish Oil, turmeric, Rose Hip, glucosamine sulphate and a few other notables are all consumed around the world for joint health and inflammation in the immediate and near future. When I take some of them I don’t give one rat F&^k about my ticker (Chalk, a barbell, bumper plates, a good program and CrossFit are my supplements for that), I only care about the longevity of shitty left knee and being able to run around and keep up with with my little daughter.
Hi folks. I love the show and have listened to nearly episode. EC said a lot of great stuff, but I’d like to critique where emphasis was placed in the conversation.
I’d suggest expanding beyond heart disease and cancer as the two major diseases to care about to four: cancer, athersclerotic diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and ‘other’ metabolic syndrome associated diseases. Alzheimer’s matters to a lot of people, T2 diabetes matters a lot of people, NAFLD matters a lot of people, etc… Those should be minimized.
Second, too much of this conversation focuses on what we learn from randomized control trials, which are simply not going to uncover much about nutrition. The genetic variability in humans is too great and there are profound challenges in study design. The fact that anything does come through – e.g. data on caffeine and creatine – is really, really amazing.
RCTs work best when an intervention’s effect is similar across a population. RCTs tend to not indicate efficacy in situations where a supplement or drug is not impactful for most but hugely impactful for some. It’s sort of like bandaging up 100 people’s arms, only two of whom had bloody gashes on their arms, and reporting that arm bandages didn’t seem to do much on average.
This is important because nutritional needs for MOST people are meaningfully affected by some genetic ‘uniqueness’. It’s not a “in rare cases this might make sense for you” thing.
About 25% of people have one or two alleles of Apoe4, about the same for MtHFR – C677T, a lot of people have Vitamin D Receptor, or COMT variants. When you add it up, most people have something they may want to think about exploring, developing a nutritional strategy around, and possibly supplementing to address. Like EC mentioned, you can learn a lot from decent biomarker panels, but I’d suggest decent genetic tests too. You don’t need to be obsessed, but you should pay attention.
This hits home for me because, like 25% of Americans, I have ApoE4 and family history of Alzheimer’s. We know a lot about ApoE4 and there is a very good case that the 25% of folks who have it should follow a nutritional strategy unique to the other 75% of folks. Omega-3s are a super good example, since ApoE affects omega-3 utilization. You’re right that the RCT data isn’t there for general use of fish oil supplements. But if you are one of the 75 million with ApoE4 it may be worth considering supplementing if you can’t eat enough fish. (If you are reading this and you have apoe4, check out apoe4.info)
When I was taking fish oil regularly, I noticed an improvement in performance and how I felt. Maybe that was a placebo effect, maybe not, but there are other reasons to take supplements beyond preventing mortality or cardiac events.
This could be a game changer for my wallet. I suppose the push back from the supplement industry will be to say that our food isn't as nutrient dense in todays world due to a degradation in soil quality. So we need to account for this by taking more pills. Is our soil terrible, who knows, hard to know who to trust nowadays. However i trust Boz and Pat and they trust EC so my multivitamins are going in the garbage.
EC awesome as always! What about supplementing collagen? I’m sure she’s covered this before somewhere else but wanted to see what the verdict was. Thank you!
I’ve listened happily and learned so much from your podcasts but this one was disappointing. As a mom of twins that were developmentally delayed, I fully recovered one through supplementation and make tremendous gains with the other (they’re 16 and I’ve been on a biomed journey with them 13 years). Omega 3 (fish oil), omega 9 (olive oil), and vitamins D, C and B’s have been a total game changer for gut and brain health. It’s not about avoiding death, it’s about health. I have researched a lot… but seeing first hand the way supplements affect a child proved to me they’re worth it. It might not prove causation but whatever.
I was super keen for this episode but came away super disappointed. I don’t want to put words into ECs mouth or draw incorrect conclusions about her entire stance on supplements from a single 90min podcast but not everyone takes supplements for preventative health, not all supplement consumption is for esoteric long term health benefits. I was disappointed to hear only the two big possible reasons (cardiovascular diseases and cancer) keep coming up as flawed reasons for supplementation.
What about quality of life in the here and now: Fish Oil, turmeric, Rose Hip, glucosamine sulphate and a few other notables are all consumed around the world for joint health and inflammation in the immediate and near future. When I take some of them I don’t give one rat F&^k about my ticker (Chalk, a barbell, bumper plates, a good program and CrossFit are my supplements for that), I only care about the longevity of shitty left knee and being able to run around and keep up with with my little daughter.
Hi folks. I love the show and have listened to nearly episode. EC said a lot of great stuff, but I’d like to critique where emphasis was placed in the conversation.
I’d suggest expanding beyond heart disease and cancer as the two major diseases to care about to four: cancer, athersclerotic diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and ‘other’ metabolic syndrome associated diseases. Alzheimer’s matters to a lot of people, T2 diabetes matters a lot of people, NAFLD matters a lot of people, etc… Those should be minimized.
Second, too much of this conversation focuses on what we learn from randomized control trials, which are simply not going to uncover much about nutrition. The genetic variability in humans is too great and there are profound challenges in study design. The fact that anything does come through – e.g. data on caffeine and creatine – is really, really amazing.
RCTs work best when an intervention’s effect is similar across a population. RCTs tend to not indicate efficacy in situations where a supplement or drug is not impactful for most but hugely impactful for some. It’s sort of like bandaging up 100 people’s arms, only two of whom had bloody gashes on their arms, and reporting that arm bandages didn’t seem to do much on average.
This is important because nutritional needs for MOST people are meaningfully affected by some genetic ‘uniqueness’. It’s not a “in rare cases this might make sense for you” thing.
About 25% of people have one or two alleles of Apoe4, about the same for MtHFR – C677T, a lot of people have Vitamin D Receptor, or COMT variants. When you add it up, most people have something they may want to think about exploring, developing a nutritional strategy around, and possibly supplementing to address. Like EC mentioned, you can learn a lot from decent biomarker panels, but I’d suggest decent genetic tests too. You don’t need to be obsessed, but you should pay attention.
This hits home for me because, like 25% of Americans, I have ApoE4 and family history of Alzheimer’s. We know a lot about ApoE4 and there is a very good case that the 25% of folks who have it should follow a nutritional strategy unique to the other 75% of folks. Omega-3s are a super good example, since ApoE affects omega-3 utilization. You’re right that the RCT data isn’t there for general use of fish oil supplements. But if you are one of the 75 million with ApoE4 it may be worth considering supplementing if you can’t eat enough fish. (If you are reading this and you have apoe4, check out apoe4.info)
When I was taking fish oil regularly, I noticed an improvement in performance and how I felt. Maybe that was a placebo effect, maybe not, but there are other reasons to take supplements beyond preventing mortality or cardiac events.
What a great episode, def have to get listening to her more! Thanks for bringing her to my attention
This could be a game changer for my wallet. I suppose the push back from the supplement industry will be to say that our food isn't as nutrient dense in todays world due to a degradation in soil quality. So we need to account for this by taking more pills. Is our soil terrible, who knows, hard to know who to trust nowadays. However i trust Boz and Pat and they trust EC so my multivitamins are going in the garbage.
EC is great. She is one of the few nutrition experts that actually reads the primary literature critically!! Her podcasts are high quality!
EC awesome as always! What about supplementing collagen? I’m sure she’s covered this before somewhere else but wanted to see what the verdict was. Thank you!
Are the effects cumulative? If we combine caffeine and creatine is it possible to get 20-30% performance increase? Thank you guys!
Man what a helpful podcast. Thank you for this one! Awesome 👏