Transcription
Okay, we're going to move on to the next question, which also has to do with supplements. This was the top voted question for this Q&A. The question was submitted by Debbie, and Debbie says, "If you were in your 70s, what supplements would you prioritize, assuming healthy, still getting the recommended exercise, including weight training and high-intensity interval training a couple times a week?"
So, essentially what Debbie Debbie is asking is if you're if you're a healthy person, you're really doing everything in your lifestyle. So exercise, you're doing everything in your diet to be, you know, eat a healthy diet. What are the top supplements that you would think are important for a 70-year-old in the context of that background?
And I'm going to tell Debbie and all of you guys that I really think that honestly most of the supplements that I'm taking are what I think even a 70-year-old were taking. And that is because we're really talking about prevention. We're talking about increasing our health span, delaying the onset of age-related diseases like cardiovascular disease, like dementia, Alzheimer's disease, you know, like cancer. So, there's really not much of a difference here in with respect to what I would take versus what a 70-year-old would take.
And that would be the typical vitamin D supplement. Vitamin D. Most older people are not going out in the sun. In fact, most younger people are not going out in the sun. And depending on where you live, you know, you may not even be be making vitamin D in your skin. And certainly if you're older, you're like almost four times less efficient at producing vitamin D3 from UVB radiation upon sun exposure. So vitamin D is at the top of the list.
Omega-3 also top of the list, right? I think there's so much data now to just really show that you want a high omega-3 index. You really want to have an 8% or more omega-3 index. And what will get you to that 8% is about 1.5 to two grams of omega-3 per day. And if you read my our recent email that we sent out on omega-3, you'll see that AIB is really not a concern at those dose at that dose. And so that is um also at the top of the list.
I would say is a multivitamin. Now this is important. I think that a lot of people aren't aware of this data. Multivitamins have now been shown in three large randomized control trials compared to a placebo in older adults 65 and older, showing that after a year of supplementing with a standard multivitamin, in this case it was Centrum Silver, it delayed global brain aging by 2.1 years and it delayed episodic brain aging by almost 5 years. Episodic brain aging essentially is referring to episodic memory which declines with age. Episodic memory is the type of memory that is important for remembering experiences, remembering people, events, you know, that sort of thing that if you ask your your elder parent or grandparent, they you you start to notice that they're forgetting these sort of things. So, there's nothing easier than taking a standard multivitamin a day. On top of that, you're getting a variety of micronutrients that are just covering your bases. Really just, you know, selenium, these essential and trace minerals and elements. People just aren't eating good diets. We're not eating micro-rich diets like we used to. And the soils are depleted as well. We're not even our our vegetables aren't even taking up the same micronutrients that they used to decades ago. So, there's just every reason to cover your bases with a multivitamin. It's so easy to do.
The other one would be finding a multivitamin with lutein and zeaxanthin. That would be that was that was in the Centrum Silver. It's also in the multivitamin that I take called One by Pure Encapsulations. Lutein and zeaxanthin are very important for not only eye health. They're they're really supporting um you know the rods and cones in your eye helping prevent age-related macular degeneration. That's been shown in randomized control trials compared to a placebo. We're talking gold standard here, people. This is not, you know, a placebo effect. This is real evidence. And there's also a variety of studies showing that older adults given lutein and zeaxanthin improve cognition. Why is that? Because it's accumulating in the brain. In fact, it's not just older adults. This is why I take lutein and zeaxanthin. It's also been shown to improve cognition in younger adults as well. So all the reason to find a multivitamin with lutein and zeaxanthin. You can also supplement with them separately as well. Mine is found in my multivitamin. I also eat a lot of kale which is probably the one of the highest vegetables that you can find with a high the highest concentration of lutein.
The other the other supplement I would say is magnesium. You guys know I've talked about this I mean at great lengths. Magnesium is really essential for 300 different enzymatic processes in the body, including repairing damage to your DNA, including energy function. You can't make or use energy without magnesium. It's also important to convert vitamin D3 into the active steroid hormone. So, you really want to make sure you're having enough magnesium. Why do I think this is relevant? Because half of the US population is not meeting the requirements. The requirements for magnesium magnesium are about, you know, 300 or so milligrams per day for a woman, about 350 to 400 per day for a man. So, adult we're talking about. So, I really think it's important to get magnesium from a supplement because most people are not again not eating their dark leafy greens, which is where a lot of them you're going to get a lot of your dietary source of magnesium or nuts or oats. I mean, people just aren't eating these sorts of diets. And so, it really helps cover the base, right? helps you get magnesium in into your body. And um you might say, well, why isn't it in a multivitamin? The answer is because the molecular weight of magnesium is so high, you just can't get enough of it into a multivitamin. You'd have to your multivitamin instead of taking one, you'd have to take five. So, you know, it's just that you know that that's the logistics of it, right? So, you have to add that that supplement to your regimen as well.
I would also say another one for older adults that's important actually would be melatonin and that is because you know once we hit the age of 40 we do start to decrease in our natural production of melatonin that continues to get worse each year with each decade by the time you're 70 you're really really not making a lot of melatonin and so I think it's beneficial for older adults to supplement you don't have to supplement with mega doses you can do 1.5 to 3 milligrams a night. And you want to do that at least I would say 2 hours before your natural bedtime. Um, and that's again something that would be easy to add to your supplement protocol routine.
The other one is also creatine. I mean creatine I think is important for everyone. Certainly certainly if you are exercising, you're weight training, you're doing high-intensity training, you absolutely need to get minimum 5g of creatine monohydrate a day. Creatine monohydrate is the best form to take. It is the most bioavailable. It is the most well-studied. So you want to be taking at minimum for muscular function five grams a day. But I would urge people to go above that to 10 grams a day because when you get past 5 grams a day, five grams are really what's going to help saturate that muscle tissue. Your muscles are very, very greedy. They really want that creatine to be involved with the energy production. They do become saturated about five grams a day. Once you go above that, then the spillover can happen in the brain. There are studies showing that once you get to 10 grams a day, you do start to see higher amounts of creatine accumulating in the brain. There are variety of smaller studies that have shown 10 grams or more can improve cognitive function, can help with the effects of sleep deprivation. And when I say improve cognitive function, it's usually in the background of some kind of stress, whether that's older adults, brain aging, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, sleep deprivation. I would argue in most of our cases, we're chronically stressed. I mean, you know, modern-day environments, we're constantly working our brains. We're constantly stressed out. Psychological stress, emotional stress, financial stress, these are all types of stressor stressors on our brain. Now, there aren't studies showing that each type of the stress that I just rattled off is going to improve. You know, you're not going to have improved brain function if you take creatine. But I do think it is my opinion and I am speculating that, you know, creatine at doses of 10 grams a day probably do help in the background of any type of brain stress. And that's really where it shines. And so, um, aging is a type of stress on the brain. Certainly when you're in your 70s, you're battling you're battling that that stress on the brain. And so I do think that 10 grams a day is beneficial.
And then also ubiquinol, very important for mitochondrial function, um, heart function as well. And that's something that I think that most adults should take. I take it as well. And then this is the best sulforaphane supplement. That's also something to add to the regimen and I just went into why that is. I'm not going to cover that again.