What Supplements Should You Actually Take? Labs, Lifestyle & Genetics Explained

In this episode of the Neurotrition Podcast, the host answers one of the most common health questions people ask: what supplements should I actually be taking?

Rather than giving a generic list or one-size-fits-all protocol, this episode explains why effective supplementation depends on context. The right supplement plan should be based on real data, current lifestyle, and how each person’s body processes nutrients.

The conversation breaks down three major factors that help determine which supplements may be useful: lab testing, lifestyle, and genetics. Lab work can reveal nutrient deficiencies such as vitamin D, B12, magnesium, or iron, while also showing inflammatory markers like homocysteine. Lifestyle factors — including sleep, diet, alcohol use, sunlight exposure, exercise, and stress — can also change what the body needs. Genetics and epigenetics, including factors like MTHFR mutations and antioxidant system weaknesses, can influence how well someone processes nutrients such as folate or produces key compounds like glutathione.

The host also gives a transparent look at his own current supplement stack and explains why each item is included based on his labs, genetics, training routine, and busy lifestyle. Supplements discussed include Adaptoten for stress and cortisol support, Bi Omega 1000 for essential fatty acids, magnesium glycinate for muscle recovery, Mito by Orthomolecular for mitochondrial and antioxidant support, vitamin D with K2, creatine, DIM with calcium D-glucarate, and chlorophyll complex.

The episode also offers helpful insight into several popular supplements and supplement trends. The host cautions against taking probiotics indefinitely without understanding the underlying issue, especially if digestive symptoms return immediately without them. He also explains the difference between folic acid and folate, particularly for people with MTHFR mutations, and discusses how berberine may be used temporarily for insulin resistance rather than treated as a permanent solution.

At its core, this episode is about moving away from guessing and toward personalized, data-driven nutrition. The goal is not to take more supplements forever. It is to understand what your body actually needs, improve lifestyle foundations, and eventually simplify your supplement plan to the few things that truly make sense.

This episode is for anyone confused by supplement advice, tired of generic protocols, or interested in a more personalized approach to nutrition, performance, brain health, and long-term wellness.

This episode is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. Always consult a qualified health professional before starting, stopping, or changing supplements.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome to another episode of the Neurotrition Podcast where we give you the tools to balance the brain, optimize the body, and redefine how to unlock human potential. What supplements should I be taking? What supplements do you take? And that is always a very difficult question to ask people without or answer people without the proper context and information. Worse your lifestyle is, the more supplements I'm gonna end up giving you every single time. I always tell people if you do X, Y, and Z, I can cut your supplements in half. Or visit us at Neurotrition Podcast.com where you can listen to us on your favorite podcast platform. All right, today we got a cool episode, I think. Uh, you know, one of the most common things that people ask me in the office is, you know, what supplements should I be taking? What supplements do you take? And that is always a very difficult question to ask people without or answer people without the proper context and information. You know, if you're listening to this podcast, then you know you're probably a person who listens to a different a lot of different podcasts or uh are on social media and seeing different influencers or different uh health experts who uh talk about all of these supplements and different things that are out there and cool new things that are out there. And everyone thinks, oh, well, it's good, so I should be taking it. And really, maybe, maybe not. You know, a lot of those things that are out there are really good, uh cool things and can be very beneficial to you if it's something that you actually need. But what really happens in a lot of cases is that no one really takes that into context, um, looking at the different factors that really determine what supplements are going to be uh the best for you. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about some of those different factors. We're gonna go through what I personally take, why I take it, and some of the things, the reasons why I take certain supplements is gonna mean that you probably don't need those supplements. So that's one big thing we're gonna be uh discussing, um, going through uh, like I said, the factors that involve all that, and then hopefully maybe give you a little bit uh better uh picture of what you really need to take. You know, um it's not uncommon, patients come in to me and they'll literally come in with baskets of supplements, uh, oftentimes 20 plus, and they probably need a third of those in reality. And it's always kind of fun to get people down to like a more manageable uh group of supplements. So let's transition. Here's what's wrong with every supplement recommendation you've ever gotten, okay? And it's simply that it doesn't take all of the both lifestyle factors, genetic factors, and real life factors that are playing out uh in your body to really determine that. It's really kind of an estimated guess. You know, in medicine in general, we really like to put people in big groups. And what I mean by that is we're we're very protocol driven, and we rarely take the individual into context because that's hard when you're giving uh generalized recommendations. So let's talk about some of the factors that we need to determine number one. Number one is gonna be your actual lab test, okay? What vitamins are you low in? Are you low in vitamin D? Are you low in B12? Are you low in things like iron, okay? Magnesium. Uh these will are obvious uh markers where we can determine you need a supplement or don't need a supplement. Or maybe you actually just need to change your eating habits a little bit. Maybe you need uh to get a more diverse nutrient-dense diet going into because that's really whenever we can get nutrients from food, food naturally has coenzymes and cofactors that help you utilize nutrients at a more efficient level. So whenever I can tell somebody, hey, you need to uh a good actually a great example is when I need people to increase their selenium intake, which is a very powerful antioxidant. It really helps with thyroid conversion and thyroid function. And you can eat three or five Brazil nuts a day and get a very adequate amount of selenium into your system. So it's little things like that that oftentimes I like to recommend. The second thing is lifestyle. How do you sleep? How are you eating? Are you eating fast food three or five days a week? I can tell you, I'm gonna work on changing that before I give you a ton of supplements. Now, I may give certain supplements in the short term just to kind of help divert that, but we can't have that as a long-term need. The worse your lifestyle is, the more supplements I'm gonna end up giving you every single time. I always tell people if you do X, Y, and Z, I can cut your supplements in half. So sometimes we need certain things in there that are gonna have to upset, offset that stress response because there's only so much we can do to limit our exposure to the stress. Are you getting enough sunlight? Um, do you drink a lot of alcohol? Um, all of these things are going to be important. Um, even exercise routine, how much of that are you doing? You know, if someone's weight training three or four days a week, I'm probably gonna recommend they take a little bit more magnesium glycinate so they can have that muscle recovery like they need to. So those are um kind of the key ones. And then there's an uh the third factor um that I think is really uh underrated is genetics. And when I mean genetics, I mean something called epigenetics. Epigenetics are the genes that basically are think of them as strengths and weaknesses, and they can be manipulated. The genetics themselves can't be manipulated, but the result of how that genetic code works and controls your body can be augmented. So, an example would be the probably the most popular one out there that people know about is MTHFR. That's a genetic mutation that impacts how you process and utilize things like folic acid. Now I hate using the term folic acid because folic acid is not actually a real vitamin. Folic acid is a synthetic um version of folate that humans have made. It's uh basically whenever you see fortified foods on a label on something you buy that's processed, they put folic acid in there. And if you don't um if you're not breaking that down properly, then you're not going to utilize it, and it can create a lot of inflammation and basically really affect almost every system in your body. So that is a really, really important one. But then if you take things, if you have that mutation, then you take things like methylfolate, then you can help offset, make that system work more efficiently. And there's blood tests you can run to see if that is creating inflammation. Things like homocysteine is a really good marker to see if that MTH, even if you don't know if you have that MTHRFR mutation, then you can use that as an inflammatory marker to see if that is a problem and then and then deal with it. So those are kind of the three key areas that I really like to focus on. And if you start off at with at least that, and if nothing else, lifestyle and labs are gonna be a good starting point. You don't necessarily have to have those genetics, but I always recommend it when people can do it. You know, the genetic testing is a one-time test, it's not crazy, crazy expensive to do a really comprehensive um genetic test like Max Gen labs that we use in our office. And so if you can do that, um I I highly, highly recommend it. So those three things are a baseline. So let's use those as an example, and I'm gonna start breaking down what I take on a personal level and put the context to these different factors on why I take it. So let's start off with my labs. Okay, so you know, as we've talked about in the last couple of episodes, um I've been on a little bit of a health journey myself, you know, taking my own recommendations and trying to improve my health. So begin of the year, um, I guess end of last year, I did some lab testing on myself. Um, I looked at everything from my sugar handling to inflammation, my hormone levels. Um, I looked at my essential fatty acid balance. So that's what that means is looking at the balance between your omega-3s and your omega-6s. Um, and I also had genetics that I looked at myself too. And then, of course, I was changing my lifestyle at that point, but I also had to take into consideration the lifestyle that I was already living up to that point. So let's take lifestyle first, and then we'll break down what supplements um I was doing uh to help with that. So with lifestyle, we, you know, I had I have lots of stress, you know, run a small business. Um, you know, as we talked about in the last episode, I have a child with special needs. Um so there's always a lot of stress going on. Um a lot of times it's good stress, uh, but it you my life is very busy and very uh demanding. So one of the things that I do for that is something called adaptocrine. That's a that's a nutrient from a company called Apex Energetics. And essentially what it is, it's a mixture of adaptogen herbs. And adaptogen herbs are basically things like Oshwagonda, Luthro, Rhodiola. There's a few other ones in this blend. And basically they're a synergistic blend that help balance your cortisol response. Your cortisol is that stress hormone that's released, and adaptogen herbs are really cool because when you get them into your body, if your cortisol needs a little bump, say your cortisol in the morning is a little bit lower, you should have actually pretty high cortisol in the morning times to kind of wake you up, then those adaptogen herbs will tend to bump up that cortisol. Um, if your cortisol is too high, um then the those adaptagen herbs will tend to lower that cortisol response. So that is something I usually take one of those in the morning, sometimes one at lunch, depending on how the week is going. Now, it is important, especially with herbs. Most herbs I do recommend cycling on and cycling off. So I might take it pretty consistently for about six weeks, and then I'll take a month or two off of it. Or I'll just take it periodically through the week, maybe two or three times a week, um, so I'm not overloading. We always remember herbs are kind of like mini medications, okay? And whenever you're taking something that's driving physiological processes like that, it always has the potential to kind of confuse your body on how to operate on a normal level. When you're manipulating how the body operates on that physiological response, then when your body is uh used to that and then you take it away and you're trying to get your body to do it on its own, it can kind of get confused and not do that uh very efficiently, just like with hormone replacement. The uh next thing as far as lifestyle was um, you know, I wasn't uh pre-diabetic. Um at that point, um my A1C was maybe a point from being that. Um so I took something called berberine that helped uh with insulin resistance, um, helped push that uh sugar into the cell so I could get more efficient insulin response. Um I'm off that now because I was, you know, as I uh engaged in a lot of exercise, um, then that was uh not needed anymore as that went down. So that's great. You can also get off of some of these supplements as well. I as I started increasing exercise, there were some things I added there. I added some CoQ10 to help with energy production at the cellular level, so that ATP production to help make cardio workouts and strength training uh more efficient. I started taking creatine, about five grams of that. Um, that was something that um helps uh build, because I wanted to build a little muscle while I lost some fat. Um so creatine is great. Creatine also has great, as we had a whole episode on that, also is very good for mental clarity, can really help you uh with focus and memory and different things like that. So that's also a good reason uh to uh take that as well. Now let's go um, let's kind of transition a little bit into my labs. Um, so the labs um themselves showed a few things. Um, the my essential fatty acid level, um, I did not have enough omega-3s, which actually I wasn't surprised. I'm the only person in my household who likes fish. So that means we never eat fish unless we're uh out to eat or something like that. The only time I really get uh fish in my diet. And so, in my genetics, on top of that, also showed that I was likely to need more omega-3s than the average person. So I take something called Bioomega 1000. It has uh basically uh each capsule has a thousand um milligrams of omega-3s, um, a high EPA, which is the anti-inflammatory, and a high amount of the DHA, which is uh more for your brain and eyes. Um I take usually two of two to three of those a day to try to make up for that deficit since it's not in my diet. You may not need that much, um, depending on your genetics, and then also depending on you know how much you're how much your uh genetics require and your diet requires. So that can really uh affect that. Um because I and also because I was working out, I am taking uh quite a bit of magnesium. Um magnesium glycinate is really a good absorbable form. Um another good version of magnesium is magnesium 3 and 8, but that's more for your brain. Um so if you need it more for a calming or for sleep, 3 and 8 sometimes is a little bit more uh efficient on on that level. Going more into my um genetics a little bit, um, I did not have an MTHFR, um, which I was kind of shocked that I didn't have that. Um a good chunk, 60, 70% of the population has some sort of mutation there. Wasn't upset about it, but what I did have in my genetics was I did not, my antioxidant systems do not work very well. So I don't produce things like glutathione very well. I can't get rid of inflammatory stresses on my cells uh very efficiently. So my quote unquote multivitamin, I kind of hate that term, um, I use something called mitochore. That's by a company called uh orthomolecular. And mitochore is really cool because it's kind of like a multivitamin for your mitochondria and your cell. So lots of methylized B vitamins. Um I do like to take those. Um, it also has a lot of things like NAC, acetyl-L-carnitine, um, it has lipoic acid in it, um, it has green tea extract in it, um, a lot of antioxidant nutrients to help not only help the cell work more efficiently, but help boost those antioxidant systems. Because I did have some inflammation in my body. So that that one makes a lot of sense. Um, you know, to me, if we're gonna do a multivitamin, let's do something that actually uh works on making those cells more efficient. Um, because between processed foods, um, genetics, and generally our environment, I think most people could probably use a boost on how their mitochondria and cells are working. Okay, and so that is a majority of the supplements I take. My vitamin D was also low, so I did take about 5,000 units of uh vitamin D and K2. I do recommend taking those two together because the K2 does help any uh absorption of the vitamin D. It also helps keep calcium from going to other places in our body it shouldn't, and just go to our bones. So K2 is a really uh key nutrient, I think, with vitamin D. If you're low, you should be taking at least 5,000 units. One important thing about vitamin D that no one tells you is that vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. So what does that mean? That means you need fat to absorb it. Okay. Um I use a vitamin D from biotics that actually is emulsified, so it has fat in the supplement itself, so that really helps the absorption. But at the very least, make sure you're taking it with a little bit of food that has a little bit of fat, and that will make your vitamin D supplementation much more effective. I can't tell you how many people are taking five, ten thousand, even the prescription 50,000 units, and they are not moving their vitamin D, maybe a little bit, but not very much. And most of the time they say, Well, I take it on an empty stomach. So, you know, you're pretty much um just throwing that uh down the toilet when you're doing it that way. Now, because my lab showed um lower testosterone, which I've talked before on other episodes, and I started on some lower dose testosterone replacement, I had to do some things to protect myself because one thing that can help, there's two main things that can happen with testosterone replacement, especially on higher doses, even though I'm doing lower doses, you can aromatize some of that testosterone into estrogen. Okay. So to offset that, I take something called DIM, DIM, and calcium deglucrate. DIM actually helps break down the estrogen, and calcium deglucrate helps you essentially detox it out. Okay. Um, so there's a cool uh orthomolecular has a cool one uh called CDG estrodim that actually combines the two together so you're not taking two separate supplements. Um, and so that has kept my estrogen attack in check without having to take any additional uh medication. The other thing that happens with testosterone replacement is sometimes you start producing too many red blood cells. Okay, you can always give blood to help offset that, but also I found that chlorophyll is a really good nutrient to help modulate your red blood cells and the size of those red blood cells. So chlorophyll complex from Standard Processor, which is all a whole food-based supplement company that does really, really great quality, um, taking that has kept my red blood cells in check without having to take any other steps. Now, one thing that I do take, I don't take it all the time. People ask me a lot about probiotics. What probiotics should I be taking? And to me, I think when you look out at the landscape of kind of wellness and uh functional medicine and you know, these kind of health influencers in general, I feel like there's this vibe out there that everybody should be taking a probiotic every single day of their life. Gut health is extremely important, and it is something that um a lot of people do have disruption. There's a lot of things in our environment and our food that do cause chronic gut issues. However, there is a balance to be had with probiotics. And one example that I'll use is some people will tell me, hey, if I don't take my probiotic for one day, I have horrible problems. If that's the case, there's probably some other imbalances coming into play there. You have too much yeast, um, you have too much, you have overgrown bacteria, you have other issues going on. Um, you should, your gut should be a lot more stable. You shouldn't be dependent on that probiotic every single day. Those are the kind of people don't say, hey, let's run a GI map, let's map out your gut flora and see what this uh really looks like and see if we can uh balance your gut flora so you can have a little bit more stability. Um the other thing about probiotics is um as I just mentioned in a in a GI map, a lot of times, actually more commonly, I see an issue where people have certain bacteria that are normal to be there, but they're in uh too much, uh too much amount. So if you do a lot of, especially prebiotics, and a lot of probiotics now have those prebiotics in them, uh those prebiotics actually can end up making you worse because they just don't, they're just a fertilizer. So they don't only just fertilize that good bacteria, they also will fertilize everything else. So those overgrown bacteria and other issues. So if you've ever taken a probiotic or a prebiotic and you've actually kind of felt worse or bloated, um that is usually a sign that you have something like uh SIBO, a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. That is really the issue. And in those cases, a probiotic is not appropriate for you. We need to cling you up a little bit and then put more maybe like spore type probiotics that actually can keep those uh bacteria kind of in check and keep from overgrown. So there can be a time for prebiotics. I'm not saying there's not. Um, they can be very, very helpful, but as a global recommendation, I do um urge caution with that. And kind of like the um the herbs, I do like to cycle uh probiotics as well. Okay, so I hope that starts to give you guys a real clear picture of kind of how we um start to look at what supplements we should be taking, um how you go about designing that. Um I mean, that's one of the main services we do in our office is help people figure that out. But we need real-time data, okay? Um just your symptoms, and and that's one thing that I I think is it's human nature because that's kind of how medicine is set up in general, has kind of trained us to think, is that we think, hey, what supplement do I take for this? What supplement do I take for this? And it's more symptom-based. What do I take for fatigue? What do I take for inflammation? And you know, there are certain things you can do to mass symptoms, but I do encourage people, you know, work with someone who's actually going to try to get to that, underline why you have um inflammation, why do you have gut issues, why do you have fatigue. Um, all of those things are important so you're not just throwing spaghetti um up against the wall. But it's really important to have some real data to um help you decide on these paths. Um, so I really, really encourage you to take another look at that. So I will have my my supplement stack. I'm gonna have a link to that so you guys can kind of look at it. Um, and um, you know, if some of those things make sense for you, um, you know, that you'll have some ability to look at that. So this is something I think is really, really important. You know, people are spending tons of money on supplements. Um, you know, my goal, even with people with a lot of issues, I like to try to keep you on four or five things at the most, um, even if we're trying to, and that's if we're trying to change some things. Um, and and much, much less if we're, you know, having a good lifestyle, good diet, um, and doing all the other things, then that supplement list is going to go less and less and less. All right, guys. Well, that is it for this episode of the Neurotrition Podcast. Please don't forget to like and subscribe and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok at Neurotrition Podcast. And of course, visit us at Neurotritionpodcast.com to listen to us on your favorite podcast platform. And we will see you on the next episode.