9 supplements that I would never take because risks seen in the human trials outweight any potential benefit.
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Here are the links to the research papers referenced in the video:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35727272/
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/ExerciseAndAthleticPerformance-HealthProfessional/
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD007176.pub2/full
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1790869
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/overview-of-vitamin-e
https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/alz.12767
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12398937/
https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/advance-article/doi/10.1093/gerona/glac135/6668639
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/ExerciseAndAthleticPerformance-HealthProfessional/
https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/coenzyme-q10
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30580575/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3598361/
https://www.cochrane.org/CD011919/ENDOC_resveratrol-adults-type-2-diabetes-mellitus
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3810808/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4001758/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27754722/
https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/44/12/2775/138471/Effect-of-Metformin-and-Lifestyle-Interventions-on
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6351883/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9321693/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8740051/
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iron-HealthProfessional/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32690432/
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Calcium-HealthProfessional
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/calcium-and-vitamin-d-supplementation-in-osteoporosis
https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Folate-HealthProfessional/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109718345601?via%3Dihub
https://www.uptodate.com/contents/low-density-lipoprotein-cholesterol-lowering-with-drugs-other-than-statins-and-pcsk9-inhibitors
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9345839/
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Nine supplements I would never take because the risks from the human clinical trials far outweigh the benefits number one is direct antioxidants particularly after exercise for example vitamin A high dose vitamin C or vitamin E so when we exercise we stress our body we release all sorts of
Oxidants and that’s a good thing it signals to our cells that they need to become more efficient so if we blunt that oxid of stress we can blunt the positive effects of exercise and we’ve got human clinical research showing this for example a randomized placebo controled trial of 54 healthy men and
Women what they found is that by using vitamin C and vitamin E it blunted the positive effects of exercise and further Studies have shown the exact same thing plus from a recent 2022 systematic review that looked at vitamin and mineral supplementation there was no benefits seen on either cancer rates or
Cardiovascular disease so there’s likely no benefit from supplementing with direct antioxidants again that’s vitamin A high do V vamin C or vitamin E and we do have evidence of harm and the harm isn’t just restricted to exercise we’ve got research showing that vitamin A and vitamin E may increase mortality rates
This is because it interferes with the balance between oxidants and antioxidants there’s also evidence that vitamin A is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer and I just want to spend a bit more time on vitamin E because there’s a lot of confusion on social media about this molecule vitamin
E comes in a complex composed of four tof OLS and four toor triols and I’ve seen on this platform other creators talking about how we should throw away the safety concerns of vitamin E because it was the alpha too feral that was studied when instead it should be the
Too trianal that are studied okay sure that’s a hypothesis that needs testing but we shouldn’t just throw away these safety concerns we don’t have long-term Safety Research on supplementing with Tor triols we don’t know if they’re safe or harmful and these safety concerns are why I didn’t include vitamin A or
Vitamin E and microv vitamin and are only used a low dose of vitamin C and I personally take the supplement because of evidence from the cosmos mind study showing that if you get your micronutrient levels correct you can help improve cognition but just because I take a supplements does not in any way
Mean that you should as well and to avoid confusion I’ve referred to direct antioxidants here it’s a different story for indirect antioxidants for example Glycine and neck so when we age a powerful antioxidant called glut Glon appears to rapidly decline from the age of 45 years old and by supplementing
With the building blocks of glutathion so neck and glycine we can help support our glutathionine levels and from the small randomized control trials that we have so far this strategy appears to correct the glutathione deficiencies and support mitochondrial function we’re very early on the research Journey with
The strategy but I just wanted to highlight the difference between direct antioxidants so again vitamin A vitamin C and vitamin E and indirect antioxidants where we’re supporting glutathione the second group of supplements out of nine that I would not take are anti-inflammatories particularly after a workout for example diclofenac ibuprofen or volin there’s
Also anti-inflammatory supplements such as Cuttin and pqq when we exercise we not only release a lot of oxidants but we also inflame the body and again we don’t want to interfere with that process we want to signal to our body that it needs to become more efficient a
Randomized control trial proves that by supplementing with CoQ10 it blunts the positive effects of exercise there’s also no good evidence of benefit from CoQ10 it’s not been shown to be of value in treating cancer some Studies have looked at whether CoQ10 might be helpful to prevent heart disease but the results
Are inconclusive and there’s no meaningful effect on blood pressure plus there’s good evidence that patients who are on Statin medications coq1 doesn’t offer any further benefits you might be able to tell an overall theme to this video and I’ll reveal it at the end third on the list is Resveratrol and
I’ve recently made a video about the ratol tobbacco which you can find here but overall there’s no good evidence that ratol offers benefits to either mice or humans but we do have great evidence that Resveratrol again blunts the positive effects of exercise multiple studies show this plus Resveratrol lowers testosterone levels
So there are harms to supplementing with resveratrol number four on the list that I would avoid is metformin for non-diabetics while it’s not a supplement there are many people in the longevity field who take Metformin for so-called Health span benefits now I want to be clear here not a day at the
Clinic goes by where I’m not prescribing M foran for pre-diabetic and type 2 diabetic patients the evidence for those patients is overwhelming what I’m talking about here is non-diabetics using midform we’ve got great evidence from the diabetes prevention program where they tried over 3,000 adults who were non-diabetics and they followed
Them up for 21 years half of them took Placebo and the the other half took MIT Forin and overall there was no difference in death rates cancer or cardiovascular disease and just like Resveratrol we do have evidence of harm metformin in multiple studies blunts the positive effects of exercise by about
50% it also just like Resveratrol lowers testosterone levels the fifth supplement out of nine that I would definitely avoid is iron and I’m including this one because when you have a look at Google’s research it shows that iron is an incredibly popular supplement worldwide and it’s probably because when people
Feel tired or fatigued they think that they may have low iron and immediately start supplementing with iron now if you’ve measured your iron levels using a blood test and you can see that your iron levels are low then sure supplementing with iron is probably a good idea instead what I’m talking about
Here is people just blindly taking ion supplements we know that ion supplements can interfere with zinc absorption people may also develop inflammation of the stomach or gastritis and stomach lesions plus an interesting paper recently came out involving just under 50,000 individuals and what they found is that people that had higher levels of
Iron seem to have lower life expectancy there’s also an idea that lower levels of iron May contribute to the reason as to why women live longer than men so generally women have lower levels of iron because of the monthly bleed could that be contributing to life expectancy
Number six on the list is calcium supplements again from Google’s research calcium supplements are incredibly popular and some people may need calcium supplements for example vegans or people who don’t eat dairy products but outside of those groups of people some people just take calcium supplements to try and
Help strengthen their bones but from the research that we’ve got at the moment where calcium is combined with Vitamin D it doesn’t appear to prevent fractures or breaks of the bones instead there is a suggestion that calcium supplements May contribute to the development of kidney stones there’s also the concern
That calcium supplements May contribute to the calcium build up in our blood vessels but the jury’s still out on that one a recent expert panel convened by the national osteoporosis foundation and the American Society for preventive Cardiology determined that on the basis of moderate quality evidence calcium from Foods or supplements doesn’t appear
To either increase or decrease the risk of heart attacks My overall point though is that if your diet is already well-rounded and you’ve got all of the calcium that you need there’s likely no benefit to supplementing with calcium but there’s possible harm number seven is high dose folic acid and for clarity
I’m not including pregnant women here so for example when my wife was pregnant she followed the clinical guidelines and supplemented with high dose folic acid but outside of that indication concerns have been raised that high folic acid intakes May accelerate the progression of cancer lesions there’s also a suggestion that it could negatively
Affect the immune system and be a contributor to cognitive impairment among older adults this is why I designed microvi to only have 200 microG of methyl folate that’s roughly 50% of the recommended daily intake I wanted a supplement that I could pair with a great diet to help me reach my
Recommended daily intakes but I didn’t want to blow past those recommended daily intakes again because there’s possible harm number eight of nine is highd do niin which is a form of vitamin B3 and other forms of vitamin B3 include nmn NR and nicotinamide we’ve got great evidence from a metanalysis published in
2018 that high nasin is associated with an increased risk of all cause death rates by about 10% it also seems to cause an increase in new cases of diabetes as well as serious disturbances in blood sugar control it seems to increase serious infections as well as bleeding and regarding the other forms
Of vitamin B3 so anyman andr and nicotinamide in mice all of those forms of vitamin B3 get converted by the gut bacteria into nin and then absorbed and while we don’t have the human research to know exactly how those different forms of vitamin B3 are absorbed there’s a strong possibility that they’re first
Converted into nin and then absorbed the recommended daily intake of vitamin B3 is only 16 mg but you’ll see in the longevity space people taking orders of magnitude higher than that up to 1 G or 1 and 1/2 G per day personally I take 50 mg of nicotinamide and I certainly
Wouldn’t want to take any more than that and the final group of supplements that I would definitely avoid is fat burning supplements at the end of the day it’s mostly caffeine and you can get all of the caffeine that you want from coffee so if you have one to two cups of coffee
Within 3 hours of waking up that is perfect that’s all you need so save your money on the fat burning supplements and hopefully you’ve picked up on the theme of this video there’s a lot of supplements that are complete garbage if we wind it back just keep it simple diet
Exercise and sleep there are a couple of supplements that do have good evidence for example creatine for muscle performance and omega-3 to help reduce heart attack risks but they are the icing on the cake of an already great lifestyle and as mentioned in this video I designed microv vitamin because I
Wanted a supplement to help me reach my recommended daily intakes of vitamins and minerals without Mega doing and pairing it with a great diet it also has TMG for exercise performance and hyaluronic acid for skin Health but just because I take a supplement does not in
Any way mean that you should as well and aside from supplements here is a video that looks at all of the strategies that you can do now to be healthier than 99% of the population