Developing a Rational Approach to Supplementation for Health & Performance | Huberman Lab Podcast

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday life

I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and Ophthalmology at

Stanford school of medicine today we are

discussing supplements or more

specifically a rational guide to

supplementation now to be forthright I

want to tell you that I am not a fan of

the word supplements because it stems

from this idea that all supplements are

somehow food supplements or designed to

compensate for what one could otherwise

get from food and that's simply not the

case many supplements are compounds that

are extremely efficacious for instance

for enhancing sleep or for enhancing

hormone function or for enhancing focus

and many of those compounds are simply

not found in food or are not found in

enough abundance in food to have the

desired effect

now that raises the issue as to whether

or not these compounds are good to take

safe to take and whether or not they are

actually beneficial for us and the short

answer is that like everything else

supplements can either be good for us or

dangerous for us depending on dosage

sourcing Etc but more importantly we

need to think about supplements and a

rational guide to supplementation as

taking into account a number of

different factors and we need to set

aside the idea that all non-prescription

compounds that fall under this umbrella

term supplements are simply things that

could be extracted from food but most

people don't either ingest enough of

those Foods or pay enough attention to

their diet in order to obtain them in

fact during today's episode I'm going to

give you a number of different very

specific questions that you can answer

in order to decide whether or not you

should be taking any so-called

supplements or not and whether or not

you should be taking one type of

supplement or another type of supplement

more or less than the other I'm also

going to discuss safety of course and I

will discuss cost because obviously

monetary cost is a serious consideration

for most if not everybody considering

the use of supplements during today's

episode I will also discuss which

specific supplements are optimal for

achieving specific endpoints such as

improved sleep such as improved focus

and such as improved hormone function

among other things I plan to cover the

full range of what I referred to as

supplements including so-called

foundational supplements that are

designed to act as a sort of insurance

policy against any deficiencies that

might exist within your diet all the way

up to very targeted outcome supplements

and compounds that is compounds that are

non-prescription that are designed to

achieve very specific endpoints such as

enhanced Focus over the next four to six

hours of physical work or mental work so

on and so forth

plan to cover everything in between that

as well and I promise to cover how

supplements interact with other things

such as behavioral tools prescription

drugs when supplements might be a good

alternative to prescription drugs when

they might not be a good alternative to

prescription drugs when supplements can

serve as an augment to already excellent

nutrition and prescription protocols and

every feature of supplements as it

relates to mental health physical health

and performance by the end of today's

episode you should be armed with a

number of different questions as I

mentioned before that will allow you to

develop the most biologically effective

and cost-effective supplement regimen

for you and of course I want to

acknowledge that for some people the

total amount or dosages of a given

supplement were supplements that you

might need to take could be zero there

are such individuals but that many

people can in fact arrive tremendous

benefit from supplements in a way that

can be more cost effective than trying

to obtain the same non-prescription

nutrients from food as we head into

today's conversation I want to emphasize

something very important not just as it

relates to supplements but as it relates

to all aspects of mental health physical

health and performance and that is I

take the stance that behavioral tools

that is specific actions that we take

and specific actions that we avoid form

the foundation of mental health physical

health and performance so things like

viewing morning sunlight and exercise

are behavioral tools they don't require

the ingestion of anything within the

realm of Behavioral tools there are also

some don'ts or do not that can greatly

enhance our mental health physical

health and performance such as avoiding

bright light exposure to your eyes

between the hours of 10 pm and 4 AM or

avoiding caffeine too late in the

afternoon because even if you can fall

asleep after ingesting caffeine in the

late afternoon we know it disrupts the

architecture of your sleep in ways that

greatly diminish your mental health

physical health and performance the

following day for instance so behavioral

tools form the foundational layer of all

tools for mental health physical health

and performance second to that I would

say the next layer is in fact nutrition

no amount of supplementation or

non-prescription compounds or

prescription compounds for that matter

can never compensate for poor nutrition

at least not for very long okay so this

is a key Point even though many

supplements are not simply food

supplements because they are not

designed to compensate for anything that

you could otherwise get from food that

is not to say that you can live on

supplements you know I suppose you could

live on whey protein and fish oil

capsules and vitamin capsules or tablets

for a short while but before long you'd

either suffer from boredom to the extent

that you'd want to go back to food or

some other deficiency would show up I

think it's the rare individual that

tries to survive entirely on food

supplements and things of that sort most

everybody and I would hope everybody is

paying attention to their nutrition so I

would Place behavioral tools do's and do

Nots as layer one the deepest layer the

Bedrock of all mental health physical

health and performance

on top of that I would Place nutrition

and of course that's going to mean

different things to different people

with the understanding that there's a

huge array of different food choices and

nutritional programs

nutrition is fundamentally important for

macronutrients for storage of energy in

the form of glycogen fats and

phosphocratine stores and so forth but

also for obtaining basic nutrients

vitamins minerals and micronutrients

Okay so we've got behavioral tools

nutritional tools then on top of that I

would place what is typically called

supplementation although today I'm

trying to expand that word to include

not just things that compensate for food

deficiencies or that are layered on top

of food as a way to enhance the amount

of nutrients that you could get from

food but as I mentioned before

compounds that are non-prescription that

can be for a variety of different

purposes and many of which are not

available in food so I would place

supplementation right on top of

nutrition then past that I would say

prescription drugs obviously prescribed

from a board-certified MD can serve a

very vital purpose in the treatment or

augmentation of mental health physical

health and performance goals so some

people do in fact need prescription

antidepressants other people do not some

people do in fact need prescription

drugs for attention deficit

hyperactivity disorder or sleep Related

Disorders so on and so forth

the whole issue of whether or not there

is an over prescription epidemic or not

um is a separate conversation for a

separate podcast I would argue that many

prescription drugs do in fact save lives

this includes the category of

prescription drugs related to statins

and cardiovascular health related to any

number of different things even sleep

disorders and insomnia narcolepsy and so

forth

that said there are many instances in

which people can either reduce their

dosages of prescription compounds or can

replace those prescription compounds

with quality behavioral tools nutrition

and supplementation but there are many

instances in which prescription drugs

are the only route by which people can

achieve the mental health physical

health and performance goals that they

wish to achieve so I would place that as

the fourth layer in this stack of layers

directed towards mental health physical

health and performance so just to list

off again I fundamentally believe that

behaviors do's and do Nots form the

foundation of mental health physical

health performance and next in line

would be nutrition

that is the specific Foods we eat the

amount that we eat the combinations of

foods that we eat in a given sitting and

the timing in which we eat our food then

on top of that I would Place

supplementation the topic of today's

episode and finally prescription drugs

and of course all of these things

interact in important and interesting

ways many of which interactions we will

discuss during today's podcast as we

drill into the topic of supplementation

developing a rational supplementation

protocol and one that is most

biologically and cost effective before

moving further into today's episode I

want to emphasize a very important point

which is that I am not a physician that

is I'm not a clinician so I do not

prescribe anything nor am I going to do

that today I'm a professor I review the

research literature I describe tools

gleaned from the research literature and

developed from the research literature

so I profess many things but I do not

prescribe anything and I think it's

vitally important that anytime you are

thinking of adding or subtracting any

behavioral protocols nutritional

protocols supplementation based

protocols and certainly prescription

drug based protocols

for whatever purpose that you consult a

trusted board-certified physician that's

absolutely essential I don't say that

merely to protect me I mainly say that

to protect you the most important aspect

of today's episode is not going to be

that you discover one particular

supplement or category of supplements or

blend of supplements that is going to

transform your mental health physical

health and performance

no the purpose of today's episode is for

you to understand where you have needs

that can be met by supplementation

better than any other approach and most

importantly how to think about

supplementation that is how to think

about the different categories of

supplements that are out there and how

those interact with your nutrition and

your behaviors so that you can maximize

your immediate and long-term health

what I mean by this is that we have this

word supplements or supplementation but

that means many many different things it

means vitamins it means minerals it

means adaptogens most people probably

don't even know what an adaptogen really

is and in fact many people talking about

adaptogens never actually Define what an

adaptogen is or designed for or the fact

that many adaptogens are also used for

other purposes so today's discussion is

really about you learning how to think

about supplementation the same way you

would learn to think about nutrition or

exercise or anything related to brain

and body health for that matter in a way

that lets you navigate this vast space

that we call supplementation and develop

protocols that are optimal for you and

indeed it may be the case that the ideal

dosage of a given supplement for you is

zero milligrams for instance if I ask

you are you sleeping deeply and enough

each night do you feel rested throughout

the day maybe you need a short nap and

that's it or maybe you don't and you say

yes I feel great I sleep great I wake up

feeling great I only need a short nap or

no nap during the day to feel rested

throughout the day well then there's

really no discussion about sleep

supplementation to be had between you

and me however

if you are not sleeping well then a big

discussion opens up as to what the

reasons are as it relate to nutrition or

when you're exercising or ingesting

caffeine in other words no discussion

about supplementation can be had in a

vacuum

rather discussions about supplementation

need to be considered in a larger

context so today you're going to learn

how to place the discussion and thinking

about supplementation in a larger

context and think about how specific

supplements that is specific ingredients

and combinations of ingredients can

indeed be used to buffer and support

your overall health and lead you to

specific health and performance outcomes

before we begin I'd like to emphasize

that this podcast is separate from my

teaching and research roles at Stanford

it is however part of my desire and

effort to bring zero cost to Consumer

information about science and science

related tools to the general public in

keeping with that theme I'd like to

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to 200 off and two free pillows let's

talk about supplements and

supplementation and how to develop a

rational supplementation regimen one of

the things that's really emerged over

the last 20 years is that supplements

and there I'm referring to

non-prescription compounds designed to

augment nutrition prescription drugs and

behavioral protocols

have emerged as a Mainstay within the

health and wellness but also the medical

communities that are focused on

developing mental health physical health

and performance for their patients and

their athletes and for the everyday

person essentially what I'm saying is

that 20 years ago a discussion about

supplements would mainly take place

within the niche communities of health

food stores or particular athletes but

nowadays I think almost everyone is

familiar with the fact that yes indeed

there are standard vitamin supplements

but that there are also supplements such

as Vitamin D3 which are designed to make

sure that people have certain amounts of

hormones in their bloodstream because

they might not be getting enough

Sunshine although I'll be very clear

over and over throughout this episode

that there is no pill replacement for

Sunshine nor is there a pill replacement

or food replacement for that matter for

exercise or for social connection or for

sleep or for simply getting smarter

again there is no pill that's going to

replace excellent behavioral protocols

in fact a physician friend of mine has a

great saying that I think everybody

should keep in mind

as we wade into this conversation which

is that Better Living Through Chemistry

still requires Better Living

I think that's a very important phrase

to keep in mind when thinking about the

optimal supplementation or prescription

drug protocol for you so what is an

ideal supplementation protocol well I

think what we need to do is to take a

step back and ask what are different

supplements designed to do for instance

there are foundational supplements these

are supplements that are designed to

establish a foundation or provide

Insurance along with your nutritional

intake to ensure that you're getting all

the things that you need in order to

have a basic level of mental health

physical health and opportunity for

Optimal Performance now this is the one

category of supplements for which I

think it's appropriate and in fact

advantageous to have multiple

ingredients in a given supplement

throughout the rest of today's

discussion I'm going to talk about the

advantage of mainly focusing on taking

single ingredient formulations for a

variety of reasons but when it comes to

foundational supplements

what we're mainly talking about are

supplements that contain vitamins and

minerals that are designed to compensate

for any deficiencies you might have from

diet or from lack of adequate diet how

would such a lack of vitamin and mineral

intake arise well for instance if you're

somebody that practices intermittent

fasting or other components of fasting

or if you're somebody who does not get

enough vitamins and minerals from

vegetables and fruits and Grains and

meats well then taking a supplement that

can

act as a insurance policy against any

vitamin mineral deficiencies in many

ways can be advantageous although I will

talk about some of the safety concerns

in just a few minutes now I want to

acknowledge that as soon as we talk

about vitamin mineral supplements the

Skeptics immediately raise their hands

and say well all that vitamin and

mineral supplements do is give you very

expensive urine and there the Skeptics

are referring to the fact the reality

that when you ingest high levels of

water-soluble vitamins so think vitamin

C and some of the other vitamins that

indeed you will excrete them in your

urine

however

it's also the case that many people are

not getting enough of the water-soluble

vitamins from their foods and it's also

the case that many people are and it's

also the case that ingesting higher than

needed amounts of most water-soluble

vitamins provided those levels aren't

exceedingly High

is or at least we should say can be safe

and again this is provided that the

levels that they're ingesting are not

exceedingly high so the typical vitamin

mineral supplement is indeed going to

cover any gaps or deficiencies that

might arise in the water-soluble

vitamins from your food intake but the

reality is that most people are getting

enough of the water-soluble vitamins

from their food if they are paying

attention to a couple of things

and those things are very simple to lay

out regardless of whether or not you're

a vegan a vegetarian a more traditional

omnivore eating from both animal-based

and plant-based sources grains Etc or

even if you're in the pure carnivore or

strict I guess it's called The Lion diet

where it's just meat and salt regardless

of what type of nutrition you follow you

will get vitamins and minerals but

you'll get more or fewer of them

depending on the nutritional program you

follow and of course depending on how

often and how much you eat that's just

sort of obvious

most people who take a vitamin mineral

supplement

will indeed excrete a lot of the

water-soluble vitamins they will retain

the fat soluble vitamins and there again

the Skeptics will raise their hands and

say you do not want to take high levels

of fat soluble vitamins because they

will be stored in your system

potentially to levels that are dangerous

again provided that vitamin mineral

supplements are not taken in excess it's

unlikely that you're going to have such

a buildup of the fat soluble vitamins in

your system that they're going to be a

problem so that raises a very specific

question that you need to ask do you

want to take a vitamin mineral

supplement well the answer to that will

be highly individual but you really just

need to address two things first of all

is the cost within the range that you

can afford and want to pay right

oftentimes these vitamin mineral

supplements can be quite inexpensive but

some of them can be quite expensive and

you can see the full range of ones that

are pennies per day all the way up to

many dollars or tens of dollars per day

because of what are reported to be

variations in quality and sourcing and

so forth I'm not aware of any real

differences between the quality of the

water soluble and fat soluble vitamins

found in the less expensive versus the

more expensive vitamin mineral

supplements more typically the cost

scales with the dosages of these

different vitamins and minerals and as

could probably be expected the more

expensive to obtain and source

vitamins and minerals tend to be in

lower quantities in the less expensive

versions of vitamin mineral supplements

that's just kind of obvious so you need

to ask yourself can you afford it

financially and then you need to ask

yourself are you able to regularly

ingest enough foods with enough variety

to cover your vitamin mineral

needs just from food and for some people

the answer is going to be an immediate

yes they are careful to get enough of

the foods that allow them to obtain

their vitamin and mineral quota and for

other individuals the answer will be no

I would say for people that are

extremely physically and or mentally

active and for people that perhaps are

following a intermittent fasting

schedule so they are not ingesting a lot

of food in general or restricting their

food intake to specific times of day

well then a vitamin mineral supplement

likely makes sense for them however it's

going to be very important to ingest

that vitamin mineral supplement with

food and ideally early in the day so

that can set up a little bit of a

challenge for the intermittent fasters

who are restricting their feeding window

to late in the day why do I say this

well many of the water-soluble vitamins

in particular the B vitamins need to be

ingested with food because otherwise

they can cause some stomach upset and

again there's a range there some people

like myself can take B vitamins on an

empty stomach and feel fine other people

feel really lousy when they take B

vitamins there are a few other things

that we'll talk about later namely zinc

and coenzyme Q10 that really should also

be taken with food but the best time to

take a vitamin mineral supplement is

with food and I believe that if you're

going to take a vitamin mineral

supplement

that you want to take it with food and

you don't want to take dosages of

vitamins and minerals from supplements

that are exceedingly high for a couple

of reasons one is the buildup of fat

soluble vitamins that we talked about

before the other reason is that when

people tend to take very high levels of

vitamins and minerals from supplements

they tend to spend less time and focus

on making sure that they're optimizing

their nutrition or at least trying to

get their nutrition right what do I mean

by getting their nutrition right well I

think regardless of whether or not your

keto omnivore carnivore

vegan or any other nutritional plan

the key thing is to get most that is

about 75 to 80 of your Foods or more

from non-processed or minimally

processed sources I think there is

agreement across the board that most

people should avoid highly processed

foods highly processed foods are going

to be foods with very long ingredient

lists that have very long shelf lives so

this often includes snack foods it does

include snack foods like chips Etc

pastries that could sit on the Shelf a

long time

but it also includes things like canned

soups and number of different other

foods that have many many ingredients

preservatives most people would do well

to avoid those kinds of foods and focus

most of their intake on things that are

non-processed so these would be things

like fruits and vegetables you'll notice

that the non-processed foods will tend

to have very short shelf life or require

refrigeration in some cases such as meat

eggs Etc

or minimally processed foods such as you

know rice and oatmeals and pastas beans

and things of that sort beans oftentimes

can be completely unprocessed as well of

course these are two general categories

unprocessed and minimally process that

should make up about 80 or more of your

food intake if your goal is health and

obtaining adequate amounts of vitamins

and minerals the so-called foundational

supplements include of course vitamin

and mineral supplements

but has expanded over the last decade or

more to also include supplements that

have vitamins and minerals but also

things like digestive enzymes and again

here we have an example where indeed you

can get digestive enzymes from foods for

instance eating a bit of papaya or even

a little bit of Pineapple can

assist in the digestion of certain

aspects of macronutrients because these

are naturally occurring enzymes that

help digest things like carbohydrates

fats and proteins

and there are other food-based sources

of enzymes you're welcome to look those

up online if you just put food based

sources of enzymes and you'll find those

but nowadays A lot of the foundational

supplements will include

papain or they will include different

lipases or anytime you hear the word Ace

by the way it means an enzyme an enzyme

is designed to break down or to catalyze

some sort of reaction in biology and

nutrition in particular so you can find

foundational supplements that include

vitamins and minerals and digestive

enzymes and nowadays more and more the

quality foundational supplements are

also including things like adaptogens

and here the name adaptogens is sort of

vague and it indeed has no specific

operational definition this is something

really important to understand about

supplementation is that companies and

indeed podcasts can talk about

adaptogens without actually defining

what an adaptogen is

in an operational way when we say

operational what we mean is a definition

that everyone in a given Arena or space

research for instance can agree on so

that when we talk about the adaptogenic

effects of a given compound we're all

talking about the same things well

foundational supplements nowadays

include vitamins minerals digestive

enzymes and the so-called adaptogens and

the adaptogens broadly speaking are

thought to improve the body and brain's

ability ability to buffer against

various stressors so these could be

things like herbs like ashwagandha that

are designed to reduce cortisol levels

in that sense ashwagandha is an

adaptogen but ashwagandha has other

effects related to hormone augmentation

in both the testosterone and estrogen

and maybe even the thyroid Pathways

we'll talk about this a little bit later

when we talk about supplements for

hormone augmentation so foundational

supplements has really expanded to

include a lot of different categories of

nutrients and micronutrients vitamins

and minerals digestive enzymes designed

to achieve a broad spectrum of effects

again this is the one category of

supplementation where I think it makes

sense to explore

multi-ingredient formulations and the

other thing that's often included in

these so-called foundational supplements

are probiotics or prebiotics

which are designed to augment and

support the so-called gut microbiome the

gut microbiome is the collection of

trillions of little micro bacteria that

exist in all of us they mainly exist in

the mucous membrane-lined tissues of the

body so that would be your nasal

passages your mouth

the vagina the urethra and the gut the

whole way from your mouth all the way

out the other end so not just your

stomach trillions of bacteria live there

trillions of microbacteria also live on

your skin in fact every time you shake

someone's hand you're exchanging

microbacteria

these micro bacteria often are healthy

for us good for us they support a huge

number of positive biological functions

but there are other microbacteria that

live in our gut and Elsewhere on those

mucous line tissues that can be

disadvantageous for us that can harm our

health a growing idea these days based

on a number of different Laboratories

work including the laboratory of my

upstairs neighbor at Stanford Dr Justin

Sonnenberg who's been a guest on this

podcast is that having a great diversity

a range of microbiota as they're called

microbiome microbiota and these

microbacteria are all essentially

referring to the same thing the

microbiome is the whole collection of

these microbacteria but having a lot of

different so-called species of these

microbacteria is known to be

advantageous for immune system function

hormone function it supports the

so-called gut brain axis that's

important for a number of things

including mood and motivation actually

supports the production of

neurotransmitters in the brain and body

that can help keep you motivated

elevated mood

support the general function of neurons

well not surprisingly there are ways to

support the gut microbiome and there are

ways to harm the gut microbiome I'll

refer to to the podcast episode we did

with Justin Sonnenberg you can find that

at hubermanlab.com if you want to learn

all the different ways you can support

your gut microbiome but for sake of

today's discussion I want to emphasize

that some of those methods of supporting

the gut microbiome are through the

direct consumption of particular foods

and there are two categories of foods

that if you're getting enough of them

it's likely that your gut microbiome is

diverse and is going to support all

those important functions I just listed

off and other functions as well the two

sources of gut microbiota supporting

foods are low sugar fermented foods so

these would be things like sauerkraut

kimchi

Greek yogurt again low sugar Greek

yogurt

um

kombucha in particular as a drink things

like kefir there are a bunch of other

varieties of fermented foods different

cultures have different fermented foods

so Japanese natto is um another source

of of ferment that is very good for the

gut microbiome and work from Justin

sonnenberg's lab and close by Labs at

Stanford School of Medicine have shown

that

if people ingest

four servings a day of these low sugar

fermented foods it greatly improves the

function of the gut microbiome and in

particular enhances the function of the

immune system and it reduces the

so-called inflammatorium it reduces

inflammation in the brain and body in

the ways that are helpful and effective

for brain and body that is mental health

physical health and performance so there

are ways to support your gut microbiome

strictly from food but it should come as

no surprise that most people are not

ingesting four servings a day of

fermented foods hopefully they're

getting enough fiber

especially Prebiotic fiber which is one

other way to support the gut microbiome

although the studies from Justin

sonnenberg's lab point to the fact that

fiber intake itself was not directly

supportive of the gut microbiome in

everybody it was in some individuals but

not in others and some had no effect and

in other individuals it actually made

the

category or I should say the array of

inflammatory markers worse it actually

led to more inflammation so that's not

to say that fiber is bad in fact in the

episode that we did with Dr Lane Norton

he discussed the many benefits of

getting enough fiber there are a lot of

reasons why people should get enough

fiber in their diet but at least for

supporting the gut microbiome

four servings a day of low sugar

fermented foods

seems to be the best way to support the

gut microbiome through the intake of

nutrition again most people are not

achieving that and therefore these

foundational supplements that can be

just vitamin and mineral supplements or

it could be vitamin and mineral

supplements plus digestive enzymes or

both of those things plus adaptogens now

also tend to include prebiotics and

probiotics that are designed to support

the proliferation and maintenance of

enough gut microbiota in order to

support the gut microbiome and the gut

brain axis now because of the importance

of the gut microbiome and because most

people are not getting enough support

for the gut microbiome in the form of

low sugar fermented foods and Prebiotic

fiber from their diet

I think perhaps one of the most

essential foundational supplements

irrespective of whether or not it

includes vitamins and minerals

adaptogens and digestive enzymes is some

way to support the gut microbiome now

this gets into a whole dimension of

of categories of Prebiotic and probiotic

capsules and one needs to be very

careful there I do want to say that most

of the Prebiotic and probiotic capsules

that you can buy first of all are very

expensive the best ones are going to be

refrigerated or required Refrigeration

just as do any good low sugar fermented

foods by the way so for instance pickles

are a low sugar fermented food that can

support the gut microbiome but if you're

buying pickles from the section of the

grocery store where they the pickles are

not

refrigerated well then you're not going

to get the gut microbiome supporting

effects from those pickles it's so funny

we're even having this conversation

talking about pickles but the reality is

they can greatly enhance the microbiota

if you are getting the pickles that are

and require refrigeration and include

the brine which is the the liquid around

them the same is true for sauerkraut

non-refrigerated sauerkraut is not going

to support your gut microbiome it will

supply some other things perhaps but

it's not going to support your gut

microbiome it has to be the refrigerated

versions for the reason that most people

are not getting enough food based

support for the gut microbiome and

because of the importance of the gut

microbiome one of the key categories of

foundational supplements are supplements

that create

support for the microbiome through

prebiotics or probiotics again they tend

to be the refrigerated varieties are the

ones that are actually going to work

those also tend to be very expensive

and there are some evidence that taking

excessive amounts of prebiotics and

probiotics that is typical of these

capsule forms of prebiotics and

probiotics if they're taken ongoing not

for short periods of time but if they're

taken ongoing can lead to some issues

like brain fog there's a nice literature

on this that and a growing one at that

so my suggestion is that if people are

going to take supplements to support the

microbiome that those supplements

include low enough levels that is small

enough amounts of prebiotics and

probiotics that you don't start to

venture into the realm of brain fog and

some of the other issues that could be

associated with taking too much

Prebiotic and probiotic in the form of

supplements I'd like to take a brief

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other category foundational supplements

are those adaptogens that we mentioned

earlier adaptogens again being a very

poorly defined category but these are

typically

micronutrients herbs sometimes they go

into the mushroom category again these

are non psychedelic mushrooms that

provide either some buffering to the

stress system by reducing cortisol

typically or that are thought to or

known to based on research studies to

enhance things like blood flow to the

brain or to enhance some aspect of

cognitive function by way of enhancing

neurotransmitter function

this category of so-called adaptogens is

an important one we'll get back to this

a little bit later the reason I mention

it now is that it is indeed hard to get

the so-called adaptogens in sufficient

concentrations from food-based sources I

have to assume that most people aren't

out there collecting chaga mushroom or

the ashwagandha herbs and then combining

them with their salads or their foods

and so that's why this adaptogen

category fits into foundational now this

opens up the category of foundational

supplements that are broad spectrum that

is that include vitamins and minerals

that have digestive enzymes that have

adaptogens and that also have prebiotics

and probiotics at the appropriate

dosages this is one reason why I'm a big

fan of supplements like athletic greens

which is as many of you know a sponsor

of this podcast and does really nicely

cover all of these categories of

foundational nutrition but I do want to

emphasize that this is not a way to

focus on athletic greens specifically

there are other categories and brands of

excellent foundational nutritional

supplements that cover these categories

of vitamins and minerals probiotics

prebiotics digestive enzymes and

adaptogens it just so happens that that

athletic greens is the one that I

discovered and that works best for me

and that many people find works really

well for them so this is why when people

approach me and they ask me as they

often do very very often do I should say

if I'm only going to take one supplement

what supplement should I take rather

than just give them one specific answer

I actually asked them three questions

first question I ask them is how well

are you sleeping at night are you

getting enough sleep are you waking up

feeling rested because if they're not

that opens up a whole different set of

interactions that we need to have and

discussions around what sorts of things

they need to do and possibly take in

order to get their sleep right because

sleep is the foundation of mental health

physical health and performance we will

have that discussion a little bit later

in this episode

the second question I asked them is

how's your nutrition that is are you

eating regularly have you found the

combination of macronutrients or which

diet is right for you do you think

you're getting enough vitamins and

minerals how's your digestion we have

that conversation and then the third

thing that I ask which is extremely

important is what's your budget because

if somebody has ten dollars a month

total to spend on supplements versus a

thousand dollars a month to spend on

supplements total well then there's a

different set of conversations to be had

as to which supplements they should take

now once those three questions have been

answered

assuming that somebody is able to spend

about a hundred dollars or more on

supplements per month

then my recommendation is that they not

focus on any specific supplements

directed towards sleep or toward Focus

or hormone augmentation but rather that

they focus on buffering and enhancing

their foundational nutrition adaptogens

probiotics prebiotics and digestive

enzymes because of the simple fact that

if they do that they're going to raise

the tide on all the biological and organ

systems that are going to lead to

enhanced mental health physical health

and performance including sleep

so this is one reason why if people say

well if I can only take one supplement

what should I take I say well what's

your budget if they say they can meet

that hundred dollar threshold per month

then my recommendation would be athletic

greens or something like it or that they

invest the time and energy to go find

the various combinations of vitamins and

minerals and probiotics and prebiotics

and adaptogens and so forth in

individual

components that they can then take in

combination in order to meet their

foundational needs but most people are

not interested in doing all that

homework and legwork to figure out

exactly what those dosages are that's

one reason why indeed I have taken

athletic green since 2012. I like it it

makes me feel better I have more energy

I sleep better my digestion is certainly

better and it supports the gut

microbiome I do that for that reason but

again I want to emphasize that there are

other great sources of all the relevant

things within those foundational

formulas that athletic greens contains

so it's certainly not the only route to

covering your foundational Health needs

there are other ways to do that now if

somebody has a budget lower than a

hundred dollars per month to spend on

foundational supplementation well then

there are a couple of discussions to be

had now if the amount of money that they

have to devote to foundational

supplementation is zero of course

respect that and then it becomes a

discussion about what sorts of foods and

patterns of food intake are going to

best support their mental health

physical health performance now if

somebody has somewhere between zero

dollars and fifty dollars to spend on

supplementation for sake of this thing

we're calling foundational Health per

month well then a different category of

supplement discussion arises and we'll

have that in a moment but to sort of

close the conversation on foundational

supplementation

again that means many different things

it's vitamins and minerals sometimes

that's one vitamin and mineral

supplement it means digestive enzymes

that could be its own supplement or in

combination with vitamins and minerals

it means often not always adaptogens

things like ashwagandha different

plant-based and mushroom-based

formulations that can buffer stress and

provide other brain and body support

and it often although not always but

should I believe include the probiotics

and prebiotics or anything that supports

healthy gut microbiome

once again I think a broad spectrum

supplement that has many many

ingredients of high quality that covers

all these bases is going to be the best

route to ensuring foundational

supplementation is covered and I do

think that should be the starting place

for any and all supplementation regimens

I'll say that once again I think

covering your foundational needs in the

realm of vitamins minerals probiotics

digestive enzymes and

adaptogens is going to give you the most

benefit

by cost and the most benefit across the

board in terms of brain and body systems

that's going to allow you to feel better

overall sleep better overall focus

better overall and support all the

different systems in your brain and body

that are going to allow you to be at

your best while of course also paying

careful attention to your nutrition

because you simply cannot abandon

nutrition again Better Living Through

Chemistry still requires Better Living

so now that we've had that discussion

about foundational supplementation

and again highlighting the fact that

that's the one category of

supplementation where multi-ingredient

formulations make the most sense I'd

like to now shift our attention to

single ingredient formulation

supplements that are designed to achieve

specific endpoints and here again rather

than focus on specific ingredients and

supplements to achieve specific

endpoints because we've done that

already in episodes related to sleep and

focus Etc

I'd like to take a step back and focus

on the larger theme of today's episode

which is how to think about

supplementation in a rational cost

effective and biologically effective way

for each of these categories and the

three categories that I'm going to cover

are sleep

hormone support and cognitive

enhancement and focus cognitive

enhancement and focus being the final

third category

let's talk about sleep and the rational

approach to thinking about

supplementation for sleep as I mentioned

earlier in this episode and on many

previous episodes of this podcast sleep

is the foundation of mental health

physical health and performance

you might be somebody who can do an

all-nighter and feel okay the next day

or maybe even great but most everybody

once they start to have minimal sleep

for one or two nights in the form of

broken sleep poor sleep not enough sleep

or sleeping at the wrong time of night

there is such a thing or day

they start to suffer their mood starts

to suffer their cognitive Clarity and

performance starts to suffer their

mental health can suffer severely and

physical performance definitely suffers

hormone suffer everything suffers

conversely

when people are sleeping well that is

deeply and enough eighty percent of the

nights of their life

mental health physical health and

performance all flourish and I think

most people start to be almost amazed at

how well they're doing in various

domains of life that previously they

might have struggled with so sleep is

fundamental that's that's established

when thinking about supplementation for

sleep we need to ask ourselves a number

of important questions first of all you

should ask yourself how well that is how

deeply and how much are you sleeping per

night assuming you're somebody who can

fall asleep easily stay asleep through

the night wake up feeling relatively

rested maybe a little groggy and then

can move about your day with plenty of

energy and focus you're not falling

asleep in class or at work or behind the

wheel whereas a passenger on public

transportation

well then you're probably getting enough

sleep and by the way it's perfectly

normal to require anywhere from a 10

minute to a 90 minute nap in the

afternoon for some people if you're not

a napper no big deal it's known that

naps can disrupt nighttime sleep but

provided that they're early enough in

the day if you take a nap and you are

still able to fall asleep at night then

naps are fine for you if you're somebody

who doesn't like naps because you wake

up groggy or grumpy which often happens

to certain people then don't nap

you certainly do not need to nap but if

you're feeling energetic throughout the

day chances are you're getting enough

sleep at night but there are people of

course who are struggling with sleep

either falling asleep staying asleep or

they're not feeling alert enough during

the day or all of the above and then it

makes sense to step back and take a look

at what supplementation can provide

if you are one of those people who is

not sleeping enough or well enough at

night that you are suffering during the

day in whatever way mild to severe there

are two questions you should ask

yourself first of all are you ingesting

caffeine after 2 pm if the answer is yes

you want to limit or eliminate caffeine

after 2 pm maybe even push it back to

noon or earlier I know that can be

excruciating for some folks but it can

really help with your ability to fall

and stay asleep at night second thing is

most people would do well to avoid food

within the two hours prior to bedtime

but of course you don't want to be so

hungry that you can't fall asleep all

right so those are the nutrition and

behavioral tools that everyone needs to

consider if you are not ingesting

caffeine

2 p.m or onwards and you are not eating

excessively immediately prior to bedtime

or within the two hours prior to bedtime

and you're not hungry when you go to

sleep well then there are certain

supplements that can support your sleep

and we've talked about these in the

perfect sleep episode and in the episode

with our guest expert Matt Walker from

University of California Berkeley and in

the master your sleep episode and we

have a tool kit for sleep that you can

access zero cost by going to

hearinglab.com and going to the menu go

to the newsletter and you can find that

toolkit you can sign up for other free

toolkits like it but

the point here is not to go

systematically through each of the

supplements that is beneficial or has

been shown to be beneficial for sleep

but rather to address specific aspects

of sleep that can suffer and why and how

certain patterns of supplementation can

support or alleviate those pain points

if for instance you're somebody who

falls asleep just fine but wakes up in

the middle of the night

around 2 or 3 A.M or any time for that

matter and has trouble falling back

asleep there are two categories of

supplements that you might want to

consider the first is myoinositol

typically taken as 900 milligrams of

myoinositol myoinositol can help shorten

the amount of time that it takes to fall

back asleep if you wake up in the middle

of the night myoinositol has other

beneficial uses as well for mood Etc if

you'd like to see many of the different

effects that have been explored in the

scientific literature from myoinositol

you can go to examine.com it's an

excellent site not just for inositol but

for all supplements for that matter

talks about the human effect Matrix that

is the different effects of different

supplement compounds on different

aspects of hormone brain and body Health

where the evidence is strong where the

evidence is weak has links to studies

and so on again it's examine.com amazing

website wonderful website it's provided

such a rich resource for me and for you

know many many other people

other people who wake up in the middle

of the night will wake up because their

dreams are very intense or they were

having dreams that were so vivid that

suddenly they were jolted from their

dreams those people would do well to

avoid certain supplements so in a moment

I'll talk about the value of a

supplement called theanine for falling

asleep but theanine which typically is

taken in dosages anywhere from 100

milligrams to 400 milligrams depending

on body weight and experience and what

you find to be most effective for you

minimally effective for you well the

Indian can be great for many people but

for people who have excessively vivid

dreams

those excessively vivid dreams can lead

to immediate waking and sometimes a

little bit of anxiety upon waking in the

middle of the night so some people who

wake up in the middle of the night so

jolted

mentally and physically out of sleep

because of their intense dreams would do

well to avoid theanine supplementation

I've talked about this a bit before but

it's something that I think a lot of

nighttime middle of the night wakers

might be familiar with and would want to

take into consideration now for those of

you that are not waking up in the middle

of the night or not having excessively

vivid dreams but are having trouble

falling asleep

two supplements in particular have been

shown to be effective for shortening the

transition time to sleep and allowing

people to ease into sleep more readily

and those are magnesium 3 and 8 which is

interchangeable with magnesium bis

glycinate

magnesium bisclycinate and magnesium

threonate both

have transporter systems that allow them

to readily cross the blood-brain barrier

and they lead to a mild form of

drowsiness mild in the sense that it's

not going to prevent you from operating

a motor vehicle or kind of any

conditions under emergency that might

arise in the middle of the night or if

they did a rise during the middle of

night you'd still be able to function so

it's not like a sleeping pill but people

who take those often find that their

transition time into sleep is much

faster and their sleep is also much

deeper incidentally those supplements

are also thought to be useful for

cognitive support and neuroprotection

although there's less data on that

okay so that's for falling asleep that's

one category either magnesium magnesium

three and eight or bis glycine would be

interchangeable for assisting the

transition time into sleep and then the

other supplement is apogenin API

g-e-n-i-n apogenin which is a derivative

of chamomile I've talked about this in

various podcasts before also acts as a

bit of a anxiety lowering compound which

is essential prior to sleep for people

to essentially turn off their thinking

or to be able to reduce the amount of

ruminating and problem solving and

future anticipation that they're doing

which is a requirement for falling

asleep so what's the rational approach

to supplementing in a way that allows

you to fall asleep more quickly and stay

asleep well would you immediately take

magnesium three Nate and apogenin

together well that depends if you have

the budget and you just simply want to

fall asleep quicker and you don't care

which of those two ingredients is going

to be more effective for you well then

you could try one for instance magnesium

three and eight and try it for perhaps a

week and see how that affects your

latency to sleep time that is how

quickly you fall asleep or you can try

apogenic in the first week or you could

combine them both or you could try

magnesium three night for a week then

switch to only apogenin for a week and

evaluate which one works better for you

if neither works for you I do recommend

trying the combination together again

this is just the way that any scientist

would design an experiment to try and

understand which variables that is which

ingredients are most effective for the

result that you want as opposed to just

lumping them together and taking them

that said a lot of people want excellent

sleep so badly that they just say okay

I'm just going to take magnesium 3 and 8

I'm going to take apogen and I'm going

to take theanine if my dreams are too

Vivid and I'm waking up in the middle of

the night from excessively vivid dreams

I'll drop the theanine and many people

actually derive great benefit from that

approach but because today we're talking

about the most rational cost effective

and biologically effective approach to

supplementation if you're not sleeping

as well as you would like to

or if you want to explore what sleeping

even more deeply might do for your

mental health physical health and

performance well then it makes sense to

think about the various supplements for

falling asleep versus remaining asleep

what to include what not to include and

to do that systematically and again I

think one week's time of taking

something provided it doesn't

induce any negative effects right if

something induces a negative effect I

recommend ceasing taking it immediately

but if something does not produce any

negative effects then I think you want

to try a single ingredient formulation

for about a week while not varying

anything else not changing anything else

in your overall Protocols of nutrition

or supplementation I mean it's

impossible to clamp everything perfectly

from week to week but you know don't

change anything else dramatically and

just add that supplement for a given

week see how it benefits your sleep

maybe add in a second second supplement

if you like or rather Swap and try a

different supplement for a week and then

see what works best and see if the

combination works even better now I

acknowledge that what I just described

is exceedingly basic but it's something

that I don't think most people do most

people either decide they have the

budget and the interest in just

improving their sleep across the board

and they don't care what ingredient is

providing the maximum benefit or they

simply try something and decide oh well

it didn't work for me and so I'm not

going to try anything else supplements

don't work for me or magnesium doesn't

work for me or

um you know I woke up in the middle of

the night from vivid dreams and that's

because they're taking more of a shotgun

approach without teasing out the

different variables in fact if there's

an overriding theme of today's

conversation it's really about learning

how to isolate variables in the realm of

supplementation because once you do that

and once you start to develop that

Intuition or sensitivity of sorts to how

different ingredients impact you

it is an enormously powerful stance to

have because you're going to keep your

costs limited you're also going to find

the things that work particularly poorly

for you and more importantly the things

that work particularly well for you

toward your goals any discussion about

supplementation for sleep

I feel has to include a discussion about

melatonin I've talked about melatonin

before on numerous podcasts mine and

others and I will say once again I am

not a fan of melatonin for a couple of

reasons melatonin is a hormone known to

induce sleepiness but not keep us asleep

so oftentimes people will take melatonin

fall deeply asleep and then wake up and

have trouble falling back asleep the

other reason is that melatonin

supplements almost always include levels

of melatonin or amounts of melatonin

that far far exceed the normal

biological levels or so-called

endogenous levels of melatonin that we

would normally produce and yes it's true

that as we age we produce less melatonin

but melatonin as a hormone also impacts

other hormone systems in particular the

reproductive hormone access testosterone

estrogen Etc which is not to say that if

you've been taking melatonin for some

period of time that you've disrupted

your fertility or those hormone axes but

it's possible that you've disrupted them

somewhat and it's very clear that

melatonin can impact not just sleep but

other systems in the brain and body it

can be useful for jet lag and for

occasional use but they're also I want

to voice a message of caution

there have been studies exploring the

dosages of melatonin contained in

various supplements

and whether or not what's listed on the

bottle matches what's actually contained

in those formulations and despite those

formulations coming from quite reliable

quote unquote or thought to be reliable

sources it was found that these

supplements contain anywhere from 15

percent

of what's

thought to be or is told to be in those

supplements or

many times more melatonin than is listed

on the bottle so the dosaging does not

seem to be consistent with what's often

listed on the bottle and this is even

true within some of the more reputable

Brands so that's a real concern so we

need to highlight melatonin as perhaps

something that's only used occasionally

if you want to talk about dosages for

melatonin use for jet lag Etc go to

examine.com there's some excellent

references to studies there just put

melatonin into the search function it'll

tell you everything you need to know

about melatonin but now you know my

stance on melatonin one question I often

get about supplementation for sleep is

does it create a dependency that's an

excellent question to ask

I think most people

worry about even fear relying on

something so heavily that if they did

not have it for whatever reason that

they couldn't sleep

in my experience there is no problem

falling and staying asleep in the

absence of a supplement for sleep even

if you've been taking that supplement

for sleep

consistently seven days a week for

months and months maybe even years on

end I confess that I occasionally fall

asleep having not taken my pre-sleep

supplements and I happen to take

magnesium three and eight theanine and

epigenin I also take inositol it greatly

enhances my sleep and there have been

nights when I've fallen asleep not

having taken any of those things and

I've slept fine that said if I were to

explore multiple nights of trying to

sleep without that supplementation I

find that my sleep is not as good I'm

still able to fall asleep but the depth

of my sleep and the duration of my sleep

is not as good as when I'm supplementing

so I think that's

refreshing news at least to me that

there isn't a dependence on these

supplements in order to be able to fall

asleep it's not the same sort of

dependence that people experience from

things like sleeping pills that said

any compound any compound can create a

placebo type effect where we think we

need something in order to achieve a

certain effect we had a guest on this

podcast

some time ago Dr Ali Crum who's a

professor at Stanford and works on these

mindset effects belief effects and

Placebo effects and Placebo effects can

be very real and in some sense dovetail

with any conversation about dependency

meaning if you are somebody who loves

your sleep supplements and sleeps great

with them and one night you discover you

don't have them or you can't access them

for whatever reason that can create a

little bit of an anxiety around the idea

that oh in the in their absence you're

not going to be able to sleep and that's

a sort of a placebo effect in Reverse if

you will because what it suggests is

that there's a emotional or a cognitive

association with taking these things

that allows you to sleep well I would

highly recommend that people explore

this issue of dependency and Placebo

effects for Sleep supplements on their

own and under conditions in which

there's nothing pressing the next day

that is you don't have a big

presentation

Etc so what I recommend is that every

two weeks or so maybe every month or so

take one night off completely from all

your sleep supplements or leave out one

sleep supplement try to understand to

what extent you might have established a

dependency either real or Placebo based

on these sleep supplements and again I

suggest doing this on perhaps a Friday

night so that you know it's a weekend

the next day so you don't have to work

if perhaps you don't sleep well I think

what you'll find is what most people

find and that's

in the absence of taking your supplement

stack for Sleep one night you're still

gonna sleep just fine now does that mean

that these supplements are not actually

working under normal conditions where

you're taking them each night no what

this means is that many of these things

magnesiums in particular can build up in

the body and brain in a way that can be

beneficial and what probably explains

the fact that you can still sleep if you

miss a night of taking them is that the

neural circuits that are involved in

turning off thinking or in not thinking

and falling asleep those neural circuits

undergo what's called plasticity in

other words if you get better at falling

and staying asleep over time even if you

got better at that through the

Assistance or with the assistance of

some supplement or combination of

supplements well then those circuits are

still going to function just fine even

in the absence of not taking those

supplements just once we'll get back

into this conversation a little bit

later when we talk about cognitive

enhancement and focus

it's the same story there where indeed

there are things that people can take in

stimulant form and non-stimulant form

that can enhance cognitive ability and

focus but that does not mean that you

become so dependent on those that you

can't focus unless you take them this

has been shown multiple times over so

again to answer the question is there a

dependency established by taking

supplements for sleep

the short answer is no with the caveat

that Placebo effects and belief effects

are always going to be at play whether

or not you're talking about

supplementation prescription drugs or

even behavioral protocols for that

matter I'd like to take a brief break

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January of 10 free travel packs plus a

year supply of vitamin D3 K2 the next

category of supplementation that I'd

like to talk about is hormone support

improving or so-called optimizing your

hormones is a critical aspect of mental

health physical health and performance

we've done multiple episodes about

hormones including testosterone and

estrogen

for both men and women and for people of

different ages we've also had episodes

on thyroid hormone growth hormone and so

on you can find all those at

hubermanlab.com in fact you can go to

the hubermanlab.com website there's a

search function where you can just put

in a keyword and it will take you to all

the episodes and specific time points

where that topic happens to be covered

now Hormone Health is such an important

topic to discuss in the context of

supplementation because

indeed there are compounds that are

non-prescription based so-called

supplements that can improve hormone

function again anytime we are discussing

a particular aspect of mental health

physical health or performance we need

to start with a mention of the few

behavioral tools and nutrition-based

tools or at least some top Contour

coverage of those in a way that frames

up the discussion about supplementation

appropriately

so in the context of hormone support and

augmentation and optimization

if you are not getting adequate calories

from high quality sources

hormones like testosterone and estrogen

will suffer this is one of the reasons

why women will stop having their periods

if they're not ingesting enough calories

this is one of the reasons why

testosterone levels will drop if people

are not ingesting enough calories in

fact on the episode with expert guest

and medical doctor Peter attia he

described how sex hormone binding

globulin this is a protein that's

present in males and females that binds

to testosterone and other hormones and

prevents it from being in its free form

which is the more active form well

insulin which of course is going to

increase after the ingestion of

carbohydrates in particular insulin

actually inhibits or reduces sex hormone

binding globulin what this means is that

for you intermittent fasters or people

that are ingesting very few

carbohydrates or have very low blood

glucose or perhaps are taking things

like metformin or berberine which is a

supplement based approach to reducing

blood glucose well your sex hormone

binding globulin is going to increase

dramatically conversely if you are

eating enough calories in the form of

foods that allow your insulin to be a

bit higher not excessively High we hope

but a bit higher well then sex hormone

bonding globulin will go down and free

testosterone will go up so the

discussion about hormone support and

augmentation has to include some nod

toward or understanding of the fact that

nutrition and the way that nutrition

impacts hormones and the way that

hormones such as insulin impact other

hormones such as free testosterone that

all has to be acknowledged that is not

the topic of today's discussion but it's

important that I remind everybody that

nutrition matters for General hormone

status

it's also important to remember that

behaviors matter for hormone status

getting morning sunlight increases

cortisol levels cortisol levels are very

important to have elevated early in the

day for focus and alertness and for

immune function and to make sure that

cortisol levels are low at night and

thereby levels of growth hormone and

testosterone which is secreted mainly in

the early morning can be elevated at

night and in the early morning so

getting morning sunlight getting

strenuous exercise in the form of both

cardiovascular exercise but also

relatively short meaning an hour or less

bouts

of intense resistance training a few

times per week can also dramatically

alter hormone profiles in fact in the

episode that we did with Dr Duncan

French again you find that episode at

hubermanlab.com he described a very

strenuous but still brief two day a week

protocol of using resistance training

specifically to increase testosterone

and free testosterone and growth hormone

and so on

so nutrition matters exercise matters

when it comes to increasing supporting

or augmenting different hormones and

that's just the discussion about

testosterone free testosterone and

estrogen there's also the vast

discussion about thyroid hormone Etc

again we've covered all those topics in

previous episodes but once those

behavioral

tools are in place once you're doing the

right things and you're avoiding the

wrong things

doing the right things to support your

hormones and avoiding the things that

diminish hormones in the ways that can

be detrimental

once your nutrition is in place to

support your hormones then it makes

sense to turn and consider what

supplements can support hormones but I

do believe that you want to get your

behaviors and your nutrition correct

before you start thinking about

supplementation for hormones again I'll

repeat that get your nutrition and your

behaviors correct

for sake of hormones and for other

health purposes before you start

thinking about supplementation for

hormones and certainly before you start

thinking about prescription-based

approaches to improving hormones

once all of those other elements are in

place

the supplements that make sense in terms

of augmenting hormones come in two forms

one are broadband support for multiple

hormones and then the others are

supplements that are designed to

increase or in some cases decrease

specific hormones or hormone Pathways so

let's consider each of those in tandem

there are certain supplements things

like Sheila G for instance something

from ayurvedic medicine which may mainly

uh has the active ingredient fulvic acid

which is known to for instance increase

things like FSH follicle stimulating

hormone which in women is going to

increase certain aspects of egg growth

hence the name follicle stimulating

hormone it's going to stimulate certain

aspects of fertility it's Pro fertile

and in males can make for more sperm

production or more motile sperm FSH is

also going to indirectly increase

testosterone in males it's known to

increase libido in both males and

females so things like shilaji can

indeed augment multiple hormones and

support multiple hormone systems

generally in the direction of

pro-fertility pro libido and increasing

estrogen and testosterone

now there are other supplements such as

ashwagandha that also fall into this

category of affecting multiple hormones

ashwagandha is a very potent

supplement in terms of reducing cortisol

levels it has also been shown to

increase testosterone levels but

probably indirectly and that's because

cortisol and testosterone sort of exist

on a seesaw in terms of Pathways they're

on separate Pathways but those Pathways

interact enough that when cortisol is

lowered in general testosterone tends to

increase now it is important that with

certain hormones like ashwagandha that

you don't take them for more than two

weeks at a time at high dosages if you

want to know more of the specifics

around ashwagandha and how long to take

it how to cycle it Etc

please see our episode on Master stress

please also see the examine.com website

and put in ashwagandha it will get into

some of that description

but

Sheila G ashwagandha and things for

instance like L-Carnitine a supplement

that we often discuss in terms of

fertility because it can indeed improve

sperm motility and quality and egg

quality so it's a pro fertile compound

but it also impacts various

mitochondrial Pathways so it's having a

more indirect effect on hormones there

are many other

compounds present and available

supplements that are purported to be

pro-hormone support in particular for

testosterone or estrogen fertility and

libido there is a description for

instance of things like maca root maca

root can increase libido it's

found to be particularly effective in

women but in men as well and in all

people who are suffering from lower

libido due to intake of ssris selective

serotonin reuptake inhibitors for

whatever reason ssris are used to treat

OCD they're used to treat depression any

number of different things maca root can

be in many instances effective in

increasing libido it does that however

through augmentation of dopamine related

Pathways and some of the hormone

Pathways Upstream of testosterone and

estrogen the reports that Maca increases

testosterone

are somewhat scant and a little bit weak

to be honest so it's having these

indirect effects that may impact

testosterone Downstream so again I'd put

Maca alongside ashwagandha alongside

shilaji as

supplements that are impacting multiple

hormone Pathways toward increased libido

increased fertility increased

testosterone or estrogen likely through

indirect pathways

now with all that said I'd like to

provide some examples of

supplements that work more directly on

specific hormone Pathways aimed at

achieving more specific goals such as

elevated testosterone or elevated free

testosterone or elevated growth hormone

for that matter and elevated thyroid

hormone I'd like to talk about growth

hormone first because it's actually a

pretty short discussion first of all the

best way to augment growth hormone is to

get quality deep sleep especially the

sleep that occurs in the first three or

four hours of the night is when growth

hormone is released and it's going to be

beneficial to avoid caloric intake in

the two hours preceding sleep again

don't go to bed so hungry that you wake

up an hour or an hour and a half later

or you have trouble falling asleep but

avoiding food intake in the two hours

prior to sleep and certainly avoiding

alcohol and cannabis is going to

facilitate growth hormone release in the

first hours of sleep many people use

intermittent fasting or even longer

periods of fasting to increase growth

hormone

one of the interesting things I learned

from an expert guest Dr Kyle Gillette

who's a medical doctor

on this podcast is that indeed while

lengthy or fast or intermittent fasting

can increase growth hormone levels very

substantially it has indirect effects on

the genetic Pathways and The receptors

for growth hormone that actually are

detrimental for the function of growth

hormone so avoiding food for the two

hours prior to bedtime is a good idea if

you avoid food for longer that's just

going to assist even more certainly

isn't going to hurt in terms of growth

hormone release but extended fast

specifically for the purpose of

increasing growth hormone

are not really logical when you look at

the broader effects of extended fast

that is not to say that extended fasting

is not appropriate for some people it

can be in certain instances or that

intermittent fasted so-called time

restricted feeding is not beneficial for

some people it can be here I'm only

referring to the effects or in this case

the lack of effects of intermittent

fasting time restricted feeding on

growth hormones specifically now in

terms of supplements to increase growth

hormone there are very few supplements

that have been shown to augment this

pathway there is some idea that Arginine

supplementation prior to bedtime can

further Elevate levels of growth hormone

especially when fasted that literature

is rather weak to be honest I encourage

you to go to examine.com if you want to

peruse those particular studies

really the things that increase growth

hormone very potently fall outside the

realm of supplementation they include

exercise again look at the Duncan French

episode or

in the Kyle Gillette episode on

optimizing hormones in males in

particular but this also pertains to

females that avoiding food two hours

prior to bedtime really can boost growth

hormone significantly in sleep beyond

what it would be otherwise but it's

really only once you get into the realm

of prescription compounds things like

peptides like sermorelin which increase

igf-1 and growth hormone things like

growth hormone Itself by prescription if

and only if it's prescribed by a doctor

of course and is safe for you that's

when you start getting into really

significant increases in growth hormone

not a lot of supplements out there to

increase growth hormone potently now

it's a different story when you start

thinking about and talking about

testosterone and free testosterone and

luteinizing hormone luteinizing hormone

is released from the pituitary which is

this gland

not far from the roof of your mouth and

its nearby neighbor the hypothalamus is

a collection of neurons that sits above

the roof of your mouth and talks to the

pituitary talks to it through neural

connections and hormone-based

connections there is a hormone called

GnRH gonadotropin releasing hormone that

is released from the hypothalamus into

the pituitary it stimulates the release

of luteinizing hormone or LH which then

travels in the bloodstream to impact

multiple tissues in the body but mainly

the ovary in females and the testes and

males to stimulate estrogen production

and testosterone production there are

supplements that can potently increase

GnRH

and or luteinizing a hormone and then

indirectly increase testosterone and

estrogen and I always like to remind

people testosterone and estrogen are

present in both males and females okay

and both are important for things like

libido muscle growth

and so on a lot of people think that oh

in males you know having very high

testosterone and low estrogen is

actually ideal it's actually not ideal

if you want to keep your libido anything

that lowers your estrogen too far is

going to reduce your libido you don't

want estrogen too high but you also do

not want it too low so supplements that

can tickle this pathway or actually can

act as a bit more of a directed hammer

on this luteinizing hormone pathway may

also impact GnRH are things like fedojia

agrestis this is an herb

that I've talked about before on the

podcast that when taken at dosages of

600 milligrams per day many people not

all report elevated levels of libido

elevated sperm production elevated

testosterone in some cases elevated

estrogen a bunch of hormones Downstream

of luteinizing hormone now are you going

to be a fedojia agrestis responder or a

non-responder there's simply no way to

know except by trying it if you are

going to go down this route

there are two very important

considerations first of all there's a

fairly extensive literature on the fact

that fidoji agrestis can be toxic to

testicular cells and perhaps other cells

when taken at very high dosages so

obeying the particular dosages of

fedogio aggressus that are recommended

on various product labels and cycling

for doji Augustus can be important some

people need to cycle it eight weeks on

two weeks off other people opt for 12

weeks on a month off I know a few people

who have taken it continuously with no

issues but I do want to suggest caution

when taking fidochio agrestis

the cautionary notes are stay within the

recommended dosage ranges you can go

lower but certainly don't go higher and

I think it is wise to cycle every eight

weeks or so to come off it for two weeks

and then going back on if that's your

choice if you feel it benefited you

or taking it for 12 week periods of time

and then cycling off for a full month

before repeating again

the best way to know whether or not

fedojia or any of these other

supplements is impacting your hormone

levels in the direction that you want

and not impacting your hormone levels or

other aspects of your biology in ways

that you don't want is from a blood test

there is simply no better tool to

evaluate whether or not these

supplements are working to support your

hormones in the ways that you want and

not causing issues

except to take a blood test this podcast

has inside tracker as a sponsor that can

do in-home blood tests and give you

blood panels there are other sources of

blood tests that are quite good as well

of course and in the first episode of

The huberman Lab podcast that I did with

Dr Kyle Gillette again a medical doctor

expert in hormones diabetes and various

other aspects of medicine he described

and it is time stamped how to stand the

best probability of getting your

insurance to cover a blood test how to

talk to your doctor about getting a

hormone panel and so on so I'll refer

you to that episode for that but blood

tests are going to be very important I

recommend taking them before adding in

any supplement to increase

hormones of any kind or decreased

hormones of any kind for that matter and

then again after about four to eight

weeks of taking that particular

supplement in order to evaluate whether

or not it worked and whether or not it

had any negative effects that you would

like to avoid

I also wanted to remind people of the

dosage conversation that we had earlier

just because there's a recommended

dosage of fedogio agrestis of say 600

milligrams per day

first of all that is not an invitation

to take twice as much and expect twice

the positive effects that is not a good

approach especially with something like

fedogiograstis which can at high dosages

be toxic but it's also important to

perhaps consider taking a lower dosage

and seeing how that affects your

hormones

that approach requires a bit more

patience I know most people are thinking

I want the effect and I want it now but

I think it's very important when

thinking about exercise your nutrition

or supplementation to really play the

long game to think about what's going to

work for you in the immediate end in the

long term and to ease into any kind of

supplement regimen for instance by

taking one thing at a time varying One

supplement out and One supplement in

starting at minimal effective dose and

build up your protocols over a year or

several years it really can be

beneficial I can say for myself I

started exploring the supplement space

and taking different supplements in

different combination

and alone evaluating which ones worked

and did not work for me some were

absolutely dreadful for me I have tons

of stories about supplement fail some of

which were just kind of innocuous

meaning they were a waste of money which

isn't innocuous but at least it wasn't

detrimental to my health other

supplements which fortunately don't

exist on the market anymore

um I think actually uh were quite

dangerous and I feel lucky that I did

not experience even greater negative

effects from them other supplements have

been tremendously useful for me and for

other people for things like sleep and

hormone support focus and so on so for

Doja gracias is a good example of a

supplement that is known to have potent

effects but you need to approach it with

the appropriate um I would say respect

for the fact that the dosage ranges in

which it works

um have to be kept pretty narrow without

causing issues

it does increase luteinizing hormone and

thereby testosterone and estrogen so if

you're somebody who's already

excessively high in one or the other

it's going to be very hard to just

direct it to only testosterone or only

estrogen now the topic of today's

episode is not about fedoji Augustus per

se I highlight it because it is one of

the more potent

supplements for sake of hormone

augmentation but it's still fairly

Broadband it's a little more specific

than something like shilaji but it's

still fairly Broadband in terms of

hitting multiple endpoint hormones

testosterone and estrogen and maybe some

other hormones as well

there are other supplements in

particular Tonga Ali which is known to

for instance increase libido whether or

not it does that by way of augmenting

dopamine related Pathways or

testosterone Pathways still isn't clear

it is known to increase free

testosterone by reducing sex hormone

binding globulin

Tonga Ali can be beneficial both for men

and for women

in dosages anywhere from 200 milligrams

to 600 milligrams per day so there I

would say scale according to body size

although start with the minimum amount

and find the minimal effective dose for

you again blood work is going to be the

most effective way to determine what's

working or not working at the level of

objective numbers but subjective

experience matters too you know if you

take it at 400 milligrams for four weeks

and you don't notice any effect you

might try it at 600 milligrams but not

higher and if you still don't see an

effect well then it doesn't appear to

have worked for you other people

experience dramatic effects from things

like fedoja and Tonga Ali why would that

be the case well if you look to the

scientific literature what you find is

that the studies that report the biggest

effects of any supplement usually start

with a population that somehow

diminished or back on its heels in one

particular Dimension so for instance

people that are hypogonadal that are not

making enough testosterone or free

testosterone in fact their levels are

very very low they're subclinical

off range in terms of the charts

below the normal

well those people when they take

supplements like Tonga Ali fedoja tend

to experience greater effects because

they're starting from a lower level than

people who perhaps are close to the

optimal levels achieved through either

age genetics exercise nutrition or some

combination of those so that's an

important thing to think about these are

called floor effects and sealing effects

ceiling effects are for instance if an

individual already has very high

testosterone and free testosterone and

they take a supplement to increase it

further they might not see any increase

whereas somebody who sits more in the

middle to low range stands to experience

a much greater increase in fact one

individual I know who took Tonga Ali

admittedly on my recommendation his

testosterone was initially very low and

he was having a number of different

symptoms he did blood work he that's how

he knew it was low and he then took

Tonga Ali and fedoja in combination

because he decided he just wanted

results he didn't care which What which

thing was going to give him the results

and he experienced big increases in

testosterone this would be not free but

total testosterone of he experienced as

much as 600 nanograms per deciliter

increase from where he was before which

is very dramatic it was a near tripling

of where his testosterone had started

off to where he ended up I don't know if

he's ever done the experiment of

removing fidojia or Tonga to find out

which one it was and this is why many

people just take them in combination and

if you have the budget for it and you

are interested in just finding what

works but not isolating what works at

the level of single ingredients that

would be the approach I recommend

however again I think most people do

well to figure out which specific

ingredients are going to work best for

them by isolating the variables the way

I've described repeatedly throughout

this episode to my knowledge Tonga Ali

does not need to be cycled meaning you

don't have to take periods of time off

from it I should note that the effects

of Tonga Ali can take a little bit

longer to experience so perhaps blood

work should be done 8 to 12 weeks after

initiating the Tonga Ali protocol

as opposed to earlier and it does seem

to have sort of cumulative effects on

libido and that points to the likelihood

that it's having some impact on neural

Pathways as opposed to hormone Pathways

hormone Pathways can be slow but in

general

neural pathways are the ones that are

going to explain slow Rising shifts in

any kind of physical or mental aspect

that then remains stable over time so

the exact effects of Tonga Ali and where

meaning where they arise in the brain

and body aren't known I will provide a

link to a really beautiful review

article that covers the literature on

tonganali this came out fairly recently

and that I've reviewed with a number of

other

um MDS and medical or medicine related

podcasters it's a really nice review

I'll provide a link to that gives a

survey of Tonga Ali what people are

discovering what they're finding what

they're not finding and so forth as a

final note on supplements for hormone

augmentation and supplementation I want

to make a brief mention of something

specifically related to female Health

which is of course the menstrual cycle

and across the menstrual cycle different

hormones are present at different levels

follicle stimulating hormone is very

high during the so-called follicular

phase right and then you have your

luteal phase we have an entire episode

coming up about female hormones and

Hormone Health that will cover this we

also covered a little bit of this in the

other episodes on testosterone and

estrogen but the point I'd like to make

now is that for women

they should fully expect that certain

supplements not all but certain

supplements because of the way they

impact different hormones would have

different effects maybe even opposite

effects at different phases of the

menstrual cycle and for that reason I

believe it is especially important

to have tight control over dosage and

individual ingredients in your

supplement regimen so for instance if

you're somebody who takes Sheila Gene I

know many women who take Sheila G or

Tonga Ali

for instance or Maca and you find that

it really serves you well that is it

provides the mental and physical

benefits that you want and enjoy

at certain phases of your menstrual

cycle but at other phases of your

menstrual cycle it feels like too much

or it actually can start to give you

negative mental or physical effects well

then obviously having control over those

specific ingredients is going to be

extremely important so that you can

titrate the dosage or increase the

dosage as the case may be or cease

taking those things entirely at certain

phases of your menstrual cycle

that's not to say that some women can't

just continuously take these supplements

throughout their menstrual cycle some

can but some find that that makes them

very uncomfortable or that they would do

well to alter different ingredients at

different phases of their cycle so again

this speaks to the critical importance

of single ingredient control dosage

control and the ability to cease taking

individual or multiple ingredients

according to the backdrop of your health

generally and obviously the menstrual

cycle is a profound shift in the

hormones and thus the entire biological

and psychological milieu that exists in

the body and of course there's the issue

of birth control and whether or not

people are taking hormone-based birth

control certain forms of hormone-based

birth control and women involve

tonically elevating that means

consistently elevating estrogen that's

certainly going to reduce the

fluctuations and thus the probability

that certain hormones and hormone

Pathways will change across the

menstrual cycle but not eliminate it

altogether also there's the key issue of

fertility in both males and females one

important note even though this is not

an episode about fertility we're going

to have one soon but the important point

about fertility is that there are

supplements not just Sheila G but there

are supplements and supplement protocols

such as

L-Carnitine in particular injectable

L-Carnitine which does require a

prescription at least in the US but also

orally ingested L-Carnitine that can

improve sperm health and motility and

egg health and motility I mentioned that

earlier

but if couples are trying to conceive

it is important that if you're going to

take something that is a supplement

directed towards sperm and or egg Health

that you also consider how that

interfaces with some of the other

hormone-based

compounds that is prescription drugs

that you may be taking this is true for

people who are doing IVF in vitro

fertilization or not

again that entire discussion will be

handled in our episode on fertility and

on female hormone health and we already

did the episode with Dr Kyle Gillette on

male hormone Health optimization the

next category of supplementation that

I'd like to address is supplements

related to cognitive enhancement and

focus and here there are a number of

very useful strategies that one could

take I'd like to divide this

conversation into two general categories

of supplements to address cognitive

enhancement and focus the first category

are supplements that increase energy by

way of stimulant properties so the most

obvious of these is caffeine caffeine is

of course a molecule that can increase

levels of alertness it also can increase

levels of focus provided that dosages

are in the appropriate range the

appropriate range in most cases is going

to be one to three milligrams per

kilogram of body weight taken

30 minutes or so before any kind of

mental or physical Endeavor we did an

entire episode about caffeine where you

can learn lots of facts about caffeine

how best to utilize caffeine and indeed

I'll just give you a few of those now

turns out that if your regular caffeine

user you can still derive the cognitive

enhancing and focus enhancing effects of

caffeine if you ingest caffeine every

day but if you were to take two days off

from caffeine completely and right now I

hear all the caffeine addicts out there

just kind of cringing at the idea and

then take caffeine in the 30 minutes

prior to some especially important event

physical or mental event where you

really need to focus and be able to

sustain that Focus for long periods of

time it would have an even greater

effect than it normally would but since

most people are taking caffeine in a

kind of ongoing regular way I just want

to emphasize that it still has Pro

cognitive and pro-focus effects even if

it's taken every day or even multiple

times per day again a cautionary note

don't drink caffeine too late in the day

past 2 p.m it can really start to impede

uh your sleep at night even if you can

fall asleep at night the architecture of

that sleep is not going to be great if

you're ingesting caffeine in the

preceding eight to ten and even 12 hours

and that actually raises another

tangential but still important point so

I'm going to make it and then get back

to supplements which is the best

cognitive enhancer that you will ever

take is a really good night's sleep of

sufficient duration okay so sleep is

going to be the Bedrock of your ability

to focus and remember things in fact

it's during sleep that neural

connections remodel so-called

neuroplasticity it's actually not when

you trigger learning but it's when you

consolidate and reinforce learning and a

number of other things that relate to

cognitive enhancement and focus the

other thing of course is that you're

going to need to have sufficient levels

of nutrition so you don't want to be