Dr. Boz [Annette Bosworth, MD] - These 3 supplements are a no brainer.

Last week a sales rep who's about my age was in my office, and we were talking about how difficult it is to try and stay healthy. She asked me, "Well, what do you take for supplements?" I showed her on my desk: I take this, that, and the other. She said, "Oh, my doctor checked that a couple years ago. I'm fine." I said, "Oh no, no, you should definitely be checking that several times a year to make sure it's as high as it should be." So I pulled out testing kits. We pricked our fingers, tested our labs, and sent them in. The results were far from ideal. We were both disappointed.

Let's start with number three of my top three supplements, and it is one of the ones that we checked. This supplement is omega-3. When my friend and I checked this in our test, it came back in the 5.7 range, and it should be north of eight. The only folks that I've ever seen keep it up north of eight, in fact in the double digits, were some of my sardine fans. Yes, they ate sardines for a month, and sure enough, their number came back above 13. So if you don't like to eat sardines every day, omega-3 is very valuable in the way it improves our longevity, specifically looking at heart health, eye health, and brain health. Keeping that omega-3 high is difficult. When you first start taking foods that are high in omega-3, you'll find a universal complaint: everybody burps them up. Indeed, if you've ever used sardines to try and raise your omega-3, that happens. The absorption of omega-3 is difficult, and there are some things you can do to improve it. You could eat sardines for a week and your body would figure it out, but most people don't tolerate that.

Several of the supplements have reformulated the omega-3 to be a triglyceride form. You'll know it's the right form because they advertise it and they charge you for it. It does take more expense to unwind that supplement from its natural form and put it back together in the more absorbable, less burpy way. So a triglyceride form of omega-3 is a valuable and potent way to raise your health score. Ninety-five percent of all Americans are deficient, and unless you're in Japan or eating like people from Japan, you're probably going to need to supplement or eat several of those cans of sardines. Most importantly, you should take this with other fats, which does help absorption even if it's not the triglyceride form.

The second supplement is one that I actually didn't test in the blood test, and I often don't test it in patients. The importance of magnesium is abundant, from mental health to neuroplasticity to the synaptic function of your muscle cells. In other words, without it you get cramping, and with it you get better functioning of your muscle cells. The way you sleep, and so on, the list is endless on how important magnesium is. If you're going to place bets, bet that you're deficient unless you're regularly taking magnesium supplements. Almost everyone is deficient. I can feel the deficiency sneak up every week in my life. When I fast, I take the supplements and I am trying to get ahead, but I fast every week, and when I get to that 48 to 60 hours of fasting, my body has diuresed. It has removed excess fluid. Now, this is a good thing for me at 52 years old, but it also sweeps out a bunch of magnesium, so any excess I had on board is probably in the toilet. This book by Dr. James Normal Antonio is an excellent read, but if you look into his resources and the sites that outline which form of magnesium you should take, I'm a big fan of magnesium L-threonate, which is the most expensive. In preparation for this video, we ordered several supplements, and one of them was magnesium 3-and-8 in gummy form. Now, this was not my idea, but in the name of science I had a few. It shot my blood sugar up to 200, and the food craving was actually a little hard for me to resist, so I ended up taking too many, which then gave me diarrhea, so my supplement ended up in the toilet. Take magnesium supplements regularly, and if you want ones that are easy on the gut and easy on cost, I use a slow-release magnesium. I usually take one on the days when I'm not fasting and two on the days when I'm fasting.

The most important supplement that I take, and that I really work hard at elevating, is vitamin D. Vitamin D is not just a vitamin; it's a hormone. When my friend and I sent in our results, we were both woefully low. We were in the mid-30s, which may look like a normal level if you're looking at standard labs, but I aim for peak brain performance. I also know that if I get low on vitamin D, I tend to slump in energy and mood and sometimes get more illness than I like to admit. The vitamin D that I strive for is 50 or above. The reason I reach for that is I know that to repair any mental damage or to have peak brain performance, 50 is the minimum viable level for the best functioning brain. However, I fall short frequently. When I routinely take the supplement, I do great, but as I said earlier, I'm not the best at doing that. I also live in Florida now, so I keep thinking I should be able to get this from the sun. In another effort to raise my vitamin D, I invested in a vitamin D lamp, but apparently the only way that works is if you sit in front of it. So I am trying to sit in front of my vitamin D lamp for about five to six minutes at least three times a week, yet my vitamin D was only 38, so I have room to improve.

When you add vitamin D to our cells, that hormone goes into the cell and then into the nucleus, and it helps the nucleus transcribe the proteins that cell is meant to deliver to your body. The superpowers of cells like astrocytes in your brain are because of the proteins transcribed out of the nucleus. They are delivered to the brain and allow you to have peak brain performance. That same application applies to heart cells, bone cells, and immune cells. Every single cell in our body needs the help of vitamin D to deliver the transcription proteins, which require vitamin D for their superpower, their ability to help our body. That's why a minimum level of 50 is the goal. That's what it takes to keep the brain from sinking backwards. I seek to keep my vitamin D between 50 and 80 for maintenance, but when I'm helping patients repair from a disease, I want them pushing north of 70. There are folks who see it tip above 100, and I just tell them they can slow down on the supplement. The real best benefits appear to be somewhere between 50 and 100, and I hope you're doing a better job than I am at keeping it there. Vitamin D and omega-3 are powerful supplements. If you want to see my favorite way of increasing magnesium, and the experience of somebody seeing a float for the first time, check out the next video. It's part of the American Tradition documentary that we did a couple years ago. I'll see you there.