Many people are turned off supplements and believe you should be able to get all of your nutrients from the food that you eat. While I believe a healthy diet is imperative for maximal health I am also aware that at times you need to get larger doses of certain nutrients than can ever be consumed from eating real food. This is where supplementation comes in and I have personally had fantastic results with supplementing certain nutrients at the right time. I have also spent over 10 years studying the effects of many nutrients on both health and athletic performance and there is more research about different supplements coming out every month.
Also you have to remember that several credible studies have shown there are far less nutrients in the soil, particularly in the UK, and this leads to less nutrients in the foods. Couple this with there being hundreds more chemical pollutants in our atmosphere strongly suggests to me that supplementation is not only necessary but also imperative if you want to reach maximal levels of health and well being.
While I’m not going to describe every nutrient under the sun in this article, I will describe the handful of supplements that I take regularly and that I believe any male my age should be taking regularly. Probably the most beneficial nutrient for your overall health is Vitamin D. You can get your daily dose of Vitamin D from sunshine, if you see enough of it. However, where I live in England the sun doesn’t come out very often, even in summer! Therefore, I like to supplement with around 2000 units per day of D3 to keep the levels in my blood topped up. You can certainly reduce these levels in the summer if you’re getting plenty of natural sun exposure (remember not to burn!).
Zinc and Magnesium are two supplements that I encourage anyone to take. They are minerals that are involved in so many chemical reactions in the human body it is too long to list. But any deficiency in these two nutrients can have serious consequences to your health. So even if there are small amounts in a general multi vitamin I always top up with super doses of these two key minerals.