I have recently been looking into which, if any, nutritional supplements I should start taking. I am in good general health so am looking for supplements that are likely to maintain or improve that health, not cure any particular condition. I have been using three excellent sources for this project, which I can recommend checking out: [1]
There are plenty of supplements that are equally useful and effective for healthy people as well. I have used a couple of dietary supplements which were great in the result. Likewise Spirulina, Zinc, Calcium, Chitosan, Cordyceps and Super Calcium. These are some of the food supplements that both the people can use health and non-healthy.
Same reasons engineers build in redundancy to bridges and planes: if I 'overpower' a self-experiment, I have some margin of safety against making mistakes or just bad luck and some room for doing any post hoc analyses* - and Murphy's law, there's always some mistake or bit of bad luck!
\* Suppose I do an experiment and get my result at p=0.01 which of course is <0.05, because I overpowered it and didn't settle for 0.05. Great. But then suppose someone comes along and says, "your graphed data looks suspiciously like there might be a seasonal effect, maybe you should check for that?" Then I can do a test for that, and either find it or not. But now I've done multiple tests on the same data! Have I undermined my experiment and handed an easy excuse to any critic with which they can ignore my experiment, "Ah, multiple testing; a classic amateur mistake"? No: because my original result was overpowered, I can now just go 'I did two tests, so by Bonferroni, my new alpha is 0.025 (instead of 0.05), but fortunately 0.01 is still <0.025, so my original result is unaffected; I hope all the NHST people out there are happy.' If I had economized on sample size and only gotten 0.04 (otherwise acceptable), this woul not be possible.
There seems to be strong evidence that Omega-3 intake in healthy young adults can heighten working memory: http://biosingularity.com/2...
Project investigator said “Before seeing this data, I would have said it was impossible to move young healthy individuals above their cognitive best ... We found that members of this population can enhance their working memory performance even further, despite their already being at the top of their cognitive game.”
I undertook a very similar project to Robert (evaluating the evidence on supplements) a few months prior, and even used two of the same sources that he used:http://www.highqualityevide...
It's good to see that I came to similar conclusions as Robert. Upon finishing my research I had purchased zinc (for use against colds), vitamin D, and considered buying creatine.
Vitamin D seems worth taking. Though I should point out that while the major Cochrane review on that subject:
"Our analyses suggested that vitamin D3 reduces mortality by about 6%, which corresponds to 200 participants that need to be treated over a median of two years to save one additional life. "
the mean age in vitamin D studies (that the Cochrane reviewers were able to find in their search) was 74 years, and the mean proportion of women 79%. So unless you're an older woman, it's less than obvious how well the result will generalize for you.
Or it could just be some new effect of potassium or potassium citrate in particular; it wouldn't be the first time I experienced something affecting my sleep but not in the medical literature (vitamin D being a good example of another).
The point is, for you to have any symptoms at all from such potassium intake, blood potassium levels have to change, which suggests impaired elimination of potassium (Or something more bizarre - you being used to a diet that's incredibly low in potassium?)
I can't rule that out, I suppose. It doesn't sound very common, and the visible symptoms don't sound like when I am using the potassium:
> Symptoms are fairly nonspecific and generally include malaise, palpitations and muscle weakness; mild hyperventilation may indicate a compensatory response to metabolic acidosis, which is one of the possible causes of hyperkalemia.
In our Western culture most people have no idea what their body tells them it "wants". In principle that's a good idea but I doubt that many people can put it into practice.
Well, I would agree that people should stress less over wealth.
Dog food is overpriced and not regulated for human consumption, though. Humans have far less acidic stomach and consequently bacterial contamination is a much larger issue. Bacterial toxins, too.
As far as Vitamin D goes, a bunch of people like Seth Roberts advocate to take it directly after awakening. http://blog.sethroberts.net...
Even if there no strong scientific evidence for Seth's claim it costs you nothing to take Vitamin D in the morning.
Additionally if the timing of vitamin D intake is as important as Seth suggests some of the reported problems of vitamin D overconsumption have to do with taking Vitamin D at the wrong time of the day.
So you merely want every consideration based on impeccable evidence which will not usually exist.
> You're equivocating. You didn't claim that it was your opinion that more likely than not you can live on dogfood.
Really, equivocating? Where did I claim it was someone else's opinion?
> Because it's not regulated for human consumption.
Indeed, as OB shows every week, regulation is 100% necessary for safety and anything which is not regulated must be ultra-dangerous, while you can never die if it's regulated.
> You claimed that there's no reason to stress out, even if you can live only on dog food, because it is perfectly healthful.
Missing the point, and putting words into my mouth, respectively.
> In essence, your position is tantamount to saying that it is all fine and well for the privileged to stress out about whether they should take exotic supplements, but the poor shouldn't stress out, because there's no definite evidence they'll die if they eat dogfood.
Yes. That is totally what I'm saying. I also hope the poor will die off quickly and decrease the surplus population, because otherwise, how will I get cheaper monocles and port wine?
> Readers can reach their own verdict about your ridiculous piece:
As in the previous thread where srdiamond claimed his homeschooling comments were a joke, I second the suggestion. It's far from my best essay and I wouldn't write it the same way today, but its faults are not what srdiamond claims.
Link dead. Have a replacement?
There are plenty of supplements that are equally useful and effective for healthy people as well. I have used a couple of dietary supplements which were great in the result. Likewise Spirulina, Zinc, Calcium, Chitosan, Cordyceps and Super Calcium. These are some of the food supplements that both the people can use health and non-healthy.
Same reasons engineers build in redundancy to bridges and planes: if I 'overpower' a self-experiment, I have some margin of safety against making mistakes or just bad luck and some room for doing any post hoc analyses* - and Murphy's law, there's always some mistake or bit of bad luck!
\* Suppose I do an experiment and get my result at p=0.01 which of course is <0.05, because I overpowered it and didn't settle for 0.05. Great. But then suppose someone comes along and says, "your graphed data looks suspiciously like there might be a seasonal effect, maybe you should check for that?" Then I can do a test for that, and either find it or not. But now I've done multiple tests on the same data! Have I undermined my experiment and handed an easy excuse to any critic with which they can ignore my experiment, "Ah, multiple testing; a classic amateur mistake"? No: because my original result was overpowered, I can now just go 'I did two tests, so by Bonferroni, my new alpha is 0.025 (instead of 0.05), but fortunately 0.01 is still <0.025, so my original result is unaffected; I hope all the NHST people out there are happy.' If I had economized on sample size and only gotten 0.04 (otherwise acceptable), this woul not be possible.
'I usually err on the side of making my stuff overpowered when possible'
Why?
There seems to be strong evidence that Omega-3 intake in healthy young adults can heighten working memory: http://biosingularity.com/2...
Project investigator said “Before seeing this data, I would have said it was impossible to move young healthy individuals above their cognitive best ... We found that members of this population can enhance their working memory performance even further, despite their already being at the top of their cognitive game.”
I undertook a very similar project to Robert (evaluating the evidence on supplements) a few months prior, and even used two of the same sources that he used:http://www.highqualityevide...
http://www.informationisbea...
It's good to see that I came to similar conclusions as Robert. Upon finishing my research I had purchased zinc (for use against colds), vitamin D, and considered buying creatine.
Vitamin D seems worth taking. Though I should point out that while the major Cochrane review on that subject:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley....
found a VERY strong effect size:
"Our analyses suggested that vitamin D3 reduces mortality by about 6%, which corresponds to 200 participants that need to be treated over a median of two years to save one additional life. "
the mean age in vitamin D studies (that the Cochrane reviewers were able to find in their search) was 74 years, and the mean proportion of women 79%. So unless you're an older woman, it's less than obvious how well the result will generalize for you.
I've converged on the exact same three supplements over time after hearing different things from random sources.
Or it could just be some new effect of potassium or potassium citrate in particular; it wouldn't be the first time I experienced something affecting my sleep but not in the medical literature (vitamin D being a good example of another).
The point is, for you to have any symptoms at all from such potassium intake, blood potassium levels have to change, which suggests impaired elimination of potassium (Or something more bizarre - you being used to a diet that's incredibly low in potassium?)
www.eatwellonjuiceplus.com
I can't rule that out, I suppose. It doesn't sound very common, and the visible symptoms don't sound like when I am using the potassium:
> Symptoms are fairly nonspecific and generally include malaise, palpitations and muscle weakness; mild hyperventilation may indicate a compensatory response to metabolic acidosis, which is one of the possible causes of hyperkalemia.
Potassium chloride is commonly used as a salt substitute. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
You may have some condition that impairs maintenance of potassium homoeostasis. Also, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...
In our Western culture most people have no idea what their body tells them it "wants". In principle that's a good idea but I doubt that many people can put it into practice.
Well, I would agree that people should stress less over wealth.
Dog food is overpriced and not regulated for human consumption, though. Humans have far less acidic stomach and consequently bacterial contamination is a much larger issue. Bacterial toxins, too.
As far as Vitamin D goes, a bunch of people like Seth Roberts advocate to take it directly after awakening. http://blog.sethroberts.net...
Even if there no strong scientific evidence for Seth's claim it costs you nothing to take Vitamin D in the morning.
Additionally if the timing of vitamin D intake is as important as Seth suggests some of the reported problems of vitamin D overconsumption have to do with taking Vitamin D at the wrong time of the day.
> No, which is why I raised the point.
So you merely want every consideration based on impeccable evidence which will not usually exist.
> You're equivocating. You didn't claim that it was your opinion that more likely than not you can live on dogfood.
Really, equivocating? Where did I claim it was someone else's opinion?
> Because it's not regulated for human consumption.
Indeed, as OB shows every week, regulation is 100% necessary for safety and anything which is not regulated must be ultra-dangerous, while you can never die if it's regulated.
> You claimed that there's no reason to stress out, even if you can live only on dog food, because it is perfectly healthful.
Missing the point, and putting words into my mouth, respectively.
> In essence, your position is tantamount to saying that it is all fine and well for the privileged to stress out about whether they should take exotic supplements, but the poor shouldn't stress out, because there's no definite evidence they'll die if they eat dogfood.
Yes. That is totally what I'm saying. I also hope the poor will die off quickly and decrease the surplus population, because otherwise, how will I get cheaper monocles and port wine?
> Readers can reach their own verdict about your ridiculous piece:
As in the previous thread where srdiamond claimed his homeschooling comments were a joke, I second the suggestion. It's far from my best essay and I wouldn't write it the same way today, but its faults are not what srdiamond claims.