1. Are Supplements Good for You?

TL;DR: Many people are deficient in Vitamin D, K, Iron, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium, and Vitamin C. Eating real foods is the best way to fill these gaps, but for cases where this may be impractical supplements can be helpful.

Introduction

Getting enough of each micronutrient is one of the most important keys to good health. A deficiency in any micronutrient usually causes a very large increase in mortality and reduced energy levels, cognitive and athletic performance, mood disturbance and even mental health problems, all of which can eventually lead to development of chronic diseases including cancer, heart disease, and obesity [1][2].

In an ideal world, our food would provide all of the nutrients we need to reach a peak state of health. Of course, this isn’t the reality, for reasons including soil nutrient depletion, poor food choice, practicality, stress, and special cases. Where better food choices can be made to fill these nutritional gaps, they should, but at a certain point, but where they cannot, supplements can be very helpful to finish filling these gaps.

To reach a peak state of health, most people would benefit from taking nutritional supplements. This article lays out a brief explanation of why food isn’t usually enough for most people to reach 100% recommended daily intake (RDI) of each nutrient, and a few examples of useful nutritional supplements.

Consider using our tool A List of All Nutrients as a reference.

Why Nutritional Supplements Are Useful

Nutritional supplements are useful to fill in gaps between your current intake of a nutrient and 100% RDI.

Example: Vitamin D supplement in liquid form

Currently, almost everyone has a nutrient deficiency or doesn’t reach their RDI, and the most common are (In the US):

Vitamin D:

3 in 4 are deficient according to the study “Demographic Differences and Trends of Vitamin D Insufficiency in the US Population, 1988-2004” [3]
8.1% to 17.2% are deficient according to the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon University, but ethnicity is a big factor (darker skin blocks more Vitamin D production from the sun) 81% of children and adolescents don’t reach the RDI, and 95% of adults don’t reach the RDI [2]
For children and adolescents, artificial sources (like fortified milk), provide 2.5x the intake from natural sources. [2]

Vitamin K:

97% are deficient according to the study “Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences, Huntington College of Health Sciences” on 452 people aged 60 – 80 years old, though older people usually are more deficient in Vitamin K [4]

Iron deficiencies [2]:

8.9% of US children (1-5 years)
15.2% of adolescent females (12-19 years)
<5% of adolescent boys
13.2% of nonpregnant women of childbearing age (20-49 years)
25.4% of pregnant women were considered to be iron deficient

Vitamin C:

6% severely deficient, 28% of adults don’t reach the RDI, 8% of children don’t reach the RDI [2]

Calcium:

40% don’t reach the RDI from diet alone, 26% take a supplement [2]

Magnesium:

36% of children and adolescents and 61% of adults don’t reach the RDI [2]

Potassium:

97% don’t reach the RDI [2]

For some of the nutrients above like magnesium, deficiency can’t be measured yet, but intake can.

Soil Nutrient Depletion

Our soil is benign drained of nutrients over time, leading to less nutritious food.

An important study performed by Donald Davis and his research team at the University of Texas [5] compared nutritional data from the US Department of Agriculture for 43 different fruits and vegetables from 1950 and compared them to 1999 [3].

They measured 13 nutrients, 6 of which were lower by a statistically significant amount:

Water: 0.6% increase
Protein: 6% reduction
Calcium: 16% reduction
Phosphorous: 9% reduction
Iron: 15% reduction
Median ash content: reduced by 6%. This mainly measures minerals we eat in large quantities, mostly potassium
Vitamin B2 (riboflavin): 38% reduction
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid): 15% reduction
Vitamin A: no significant reduction
Vitamin B1 (Thiamin): no significant reduction
Vitamin B3 (Niacin): no significant reduction
Fat: no significant reduction
Carbohydrate: no significant reduction

The reason why these have decreased seems to be due to farming practices that value production more highly than nutritional density or health:

“Efforts to breed new varieties of crops that provide greater yield, pest resistance and climate adaptability have allowed crops to grow bigger and more rapidly” . . . “but their ability to manufacture or uptake nutrients has not kept pace with their rapid growth.” – Donald Davis

Davis also reported that there have likely been declines in Vitamin B-6, magnesium, zinc, and vitamin E as well, but these weren’t studied in 1950.

Two other sources indicate nutrient depletion as well:

Kushi Institute compared 12 fresh fruits and vegetables from 1975 to 1997 [3]:
- Calcium: 27% reduction
- Iron: 37% reduction
- Vitamin A: 21% reduction
- VItamin C: 30% reduction
A study looking at British data published in the British Food Journal comparing 20 vegetables from 1930 to 1980 [3]:
- Calcium: 16% reduction
- Iron: 20% reduction
- Potassium: 3% reduction

Poor Food Choice

On top of reduced soil nutrients, Americans and likely many other countries also choose low nutrition foods. Oregon State University reports that in the average American’s diet, 27% is energy-rich, nutrient-poor food, which contributes to chronic disease [2]. These are foods like refined flours in breads, soda, and many packaged foods. This is a major reason why deficiencies are so common in America, and worldwide.

Special Cases

RDIs can be stated for the average person, but what if you are twice the size of the average person, or exercise 5 times as much? What if you naturally have a faster metabolism, or what if you happen to use different amounts of nutrients because of other lifestyle factors? Special cases including competitive athletes, pregnant or lactating women, or other highly active people may require more of certain nutrients. Others may require much less. While RDI is an important benchmark, you should try out different supplements and diets and see what works for your needs from direct experience.

Takeaway

Nutritional deficiencies are common due to poor food choice and erosion of nutrients in soil over time. Certain people may also require more nutrients than the average person. Supplements are useful to fill common nutritional deficiencies like Vitamin D, Vitamin K, Iron, Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and Vitamin C.

A Few Examples

The devil is in the details they say, so here are three specific examples of supplements that help resolve very common nutritional deficiencies, the negative effects of deficiency, and how to supplement to eliminate these negative effects.

Vitamin D

As mentioned before, about 3 in 4 Americans are Vitamin D deficient. Importantly, Vitamin D can be made when sunlight hits our skin. This is why Vitamin D deficiency is more common in latitudes farther from the equator during winter.

Here are some statistics that show why Vitamin D is useful according to the book The Perfect Health Diet [1]:

The farther north one lives, the higher the risk of cancer. Supplementing could cut cancer risk in half.
The more sun in Europe one gets, the lower the cardiovascular risk
A study followed 3,258 people for 7.7 years. Those in the lowest quartile of blood concentration of vitamin D had 108% higher chance of dying than the highest quartile. This increased to 124% for the elderly.
Higher vitamin D is associated with lower risk of diabetes
Higher vitamin D is associated with a stronger immune system
- Low vit D increases the risk of tuberculosis 5x
- In Japanese school children, supplementing vit D reduced risk of Influenza A by 42%
Supplementation is highly effective in improving Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s may be caused by a bacteria in the brain, and vitamin D helps the immune system to reduce this infection
Multiple Sclerosis is strongly latitude dependent. MS may be caused by a bacterial and viral infection, and vit D helps the immune system to reduce this infection.

Problem: many are deficient in vitamin D, especially when they are not exposed to enough sunlight to make it. Those with the lowest blood concentration of vitamin D have more than twice the risk of dying overall than those with the highest blood concentration, along with a higher risk of diabetes and a weakened immune system.

Solution: Getting enough sunlight, and if this is not feasible, then supplementing with between 1000 IU to 4000 IU per day depending on how much sun you get. Cod liver oil is a way to get this from a supplement that is made from real food. As a benchmark, 30 minutes of sun exposure at midday generates about 10,000 – 20,000 IU of vitamin D, at least in Norway [6]. See our article on the benefits of sunlight to learn more the benefits of light, including vitamin D.

Vitamin K

According to the list of deficiencies above, 97% of older people are deficient in vitamin K, and a large percentage of younger people are very likely deficient as well.

The following statistics show the impact of vitamin K deficiency [1]:

Vitamin K2 optimization reduces mortality by 26%
Vitamin K: Necessary to activate certain proteins. Very important nutrient, and most Americans are deficient in it. One way to measure vitamin K is to look at the percentage of circulating osteocalcin that has not been activated (carboxylated). The EPIX-Heidelberg study found that for every 10% of osteocalcin that is undercarboxylated, advanced-stage prostate cancer cases increase by 38%.
K2 deficiency consequences:
- Loss of bone strength
- Atherosclerosis and heart disease: K2 stops calcification of soft tissues, most importantly, calcification of arteries, which is a highly accurate predictor of heart attack and mortality.
- Reduced neurological and cognitive function
- Loss of protection against Vitamin D toxicity
K2’s effect on mortality rates:
- Cancer: In one experiment, the group receiving K2 supplementation had a 75% reduction in cancer incidence, and in the last 2 hrs of the study, no new cancer growths appeared in the K2 group.
- From The Rotterdam Study, k2 intake but not k1 intake was inversely proportional to mortality rate. The study was for a period of 7-10 years, and those in the highest third of K2 intake, consuming just 41 micrograms of K2, had:
  - 26% less risk of dying
  - 57% less risk of dying from heart disease
  - 52% less risk of suffering aortic calcification

Problem: Vitamin K deficiency causes a large increase in risk of several diseases including atherosclerosis and cancer, two of the leading causes of death in the U.S.

Solution: Either find foods with enough K2 (see our list of all nutrients), or supplement with K2: 100 micrograms 3-7 times per week either from bacteria produced MK-7 or synthetic MK-4.

Another Example: Liver Supplements

Not everyone likes the taste of liver, but it appears to be the best source of nutrients per serving size out of almost all foods. Some companies chop and dry liver, then package it into convenient pills. One such example is shown below from Ancestral Supplements, which contains approximately the equivalent of 1 ounce of beef liver.

It contains [7]:

Preformed Vitamin A (retinol, better than beta-carotene)
Choline
Folate
Vitamin B12
CoQ10
Bioavailable Iron (heme Iron, better than non-heme Iron)
Hyaluronic Acid

Here is the micronutrient profile of one ounce of beef liver:

[8] Cronometer.com

From just this one supplement, you can meet 3 micronutrient RDIs, and a significant amount of many others. It also has highly bioavailable forms of these vitamins because they occur in their natural, animal, unprocessed forms.

See our article on some of the most nutritious foods to know about for some more ideas.

Takeaway

From these three examples, we can clearly see that missing nutrients in our diet can cause serious health effects, and that foods or supplements can easily fill these gaps.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that most of us don’t get enough of each micronutrient, and this greatly impairs our health. Those who want to achieve peak health should consume nutritious foods that fill these gaps, but for those who can’t get enough of each nutrient from food, supplements are useful to save time and effort.