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Thank you for posting this article. It gave me pause for thought. I have been taking a green tea supplement occasionally. I saw it in a vitamin store, and boug

Thank you for posting this article. It gave me pause for thought. I have been taking a green tea supplement occasionally. I saw it in a vitamin store, and bought it because of the supposed benefits of antioxidants. I figured - I have a stressful job, I live in a polluted city and do drink alcohol - I probably need the antioxidants. Plus, something that's made out of green tea sounds safe, not likely do any harm, right? Well. I am disposing of the supplement, obviously. More to the point, though, I have to revisit my whole thinking process around supplements. I take a bunch of them, and it's purely on the basis of "I read a study somewhere or other that this is supposed to be good for you" - and not because I have a specific health concern that I need to address. This approach suddenly does not seem so sane anymore, and I need to take a step back and rethink what I am doing here. It's amazing how easy it is to gradually lose touch with your common sense, simply because you read the "right" subreddits (in this particular case, /r/nootropics), and start to subscribe to the hype.

baccheion 8y ago
NutrEval, a comprehensive hormone panel, a thyroid panel, and genetic testing. Keeping everything in the preferred range (for a 25 year old; can get more involved as time goes by) may be a better approach. Iodine protocol. MSM lotion.
Tor3 8y ago
The general rule is: You don't need supplements. Period. That's because supplements provide (or are supposed to provide) trace elements that you need, but you only need a little bit of it. Like minerals and certain vitamins etc. The thing is - you basically need the same (trace) amount of it, whatever your lifestyle is. And you get it through eating a normal varied diet (e.g. a little meat, vegetables, some fish and seafood when you can, some (unprocessed) grains). So when do you not get enough of it? When you don't eat much food, or not enough of certain kinds of foods. Say, if you are a vegan with a sedentary life style. You're simply not getting enough of the trace elements through the restricted type of food you eat. If you're an athlete and you're also a vegetarian then you don't actually need food supplements at all - you're eating a lot of food due to the energy requirements and you'll get enough of it. Think Roman gladiator - they were vegetarians. No supplements needed. For some reason a lot of people think that you need supplements if you excercise a lot, while it's in reality the other way around.
- baccheion 8y ago
  You don't need anything... if lab results suggest nutrients and hormones are all in range.
- bald 8y ago
  Long-time swimmer here. Without extra magnesium, I will get spasms in my legs from time to time while exercising. With extra magnesium, I don't.
  - Tor3 8y ago
    I used to be a competition bicyclist - daily training sessions of hours and hours. If you don't get enough magnesium, look at your diet. With normal healthy food you should get more than enough.
    - trukterious 8y ago
      >With normal healthy food you should get more than enough. No, I looked into it some years ago and it seems unfeasible. For instance you'd have to eat about 15 stalks/heads of broccoli daily to get the RDA of magnesium, and that amount is likely suboptimal.
      - JustSomeNobody 8y ago
        An ounce of pumpkin seeds and a cup of black beans and you'd only have to eat 7 servings of broccoli.
        trukterious 8y ago
        I do eat quite a lot of broccoli but I still don't fancy eating 7 heads every day -- enough to cover two dinner plates. So I take a magnesium tablet before bed. Less work to prepare and to digest. The present moral aversion to supplements seems faddish to me. We've gone from one extreme in the 1960s where everyone looked forward to taking all food in pill form, like fictional astronauts, to another extreme where supplements of any kind are frowned upon by many including in the medical establishment. Some supplements don't absorb very well, it's true, and some consumers are irresponsible -- yet atoms are atoms and molecules are molecules regardless of the source.
C1sc0cat 8y ago
Last year I was in a hospital renal unit and the guy next to me had had total kidney shutdown from taking to much Zinc - Interaction with other meds they thought.
edoloughlin 8y ago
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/more-trouble-for-antioxidants/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/more-trouble-for-antioxidan... Growing evidence that antioxidants are not good for your immune system.
Amygaz 8y ago
How do you, or actually how does the OP knows that it is the green tea part of the supplement, and not everything else not otherwise on the labeled that is killing is liver. The green tea industry is massive user of pesticide, herbicides, fungicide. Extraction process can be sketchy too using re-used solvents. Water in the process can also be contaminated. “The content of this bottle may differ from its label.”
neuralRiot 8y ago
Always get your nutrients/ antioxidants/ vitamins from its natural form, if you want the benefits of green tea then drink green tea that way you'll get all the benefits from it (water intake, refreshing and such) and will never risk overdose.

baccheion 8y ago

NutrEval, a comprehensive hormone panel, a thyroid panel, and genetic testing. Keeping everything in the preferred range (for a 25 year old; can get more involved as time goes by) may be a better approach. Iodine protocol. MSM lotion.

Tor3 8y ago

The general rule is: You don't need supplements. Period. That's because supplements provide (or are supposed to provide) trace elements that you need, but you only need a little bit of it. Like minerals and certain vitamins etc. The thing is - you basically need the same (trace) amount of it, whatever your lifestyle is. And you get it through eating a normal varied diet (e.g. a little meat, vegetables, some fish and seafood when you can, some (unprocessed) grains). So when do you not get enough of it? When you don't eat much food, or not enough of certain kinds of foods. Say, if you are a vegan with a sedentary life style. You're simply not getting enough of the trace elements through the restricted type of food you eat. If you're an athlete and you're also a vegetarian then you don't actually need food supplements at all - you're eating a lot of food due to the energy requirements and you'll get enough of it. Think Roman gladiator - they were vegetarians. No supplements needed. For some reason a lot of people think that you need supplements if you excercise a lot, while it's in reality the other way around.

baccheion 8y ago
You don't need anything... if lab results suggest nutrients and hormones are all in range.
bald 8y ago
Long-time swimmer here. Without extra magnesium, I will get spasms in my legs from time to time while exercising. With extra magnesium, I don't.
- Tor3 8y ago
  I used to be a competition bicyclist - daily training sessions of hours and hours. If you don't get enough magnesium, look at your diet. With normal healthy food you should get more than enough.
  - trukterious 8y ago
    >With normal healthy food you should get more than enough. No, I looked into it some years ago and it seems unfeasible. For instance you'd have to eat about 15 stalks/heads of broccoli daily to get the RDA of magnesium, and that amount is likely suboptimal.
    - JustSomeNobody 8y ago
      An ounce of pumpkin seeds and a cup of black beans and you'd only have to eat 7 servings of broccoli.
      - trukterious 8y ago
        I do eat quite a lot of broccoli but I still don't fancy eating 7 heads every day -- enough to cover two dinner plates. So I take a magnesium tablet before bed. Less work to prepare and to digest. The present moral aversion to supplements seems faddish to me. We've gone from one extreme in the 1960s where everyone looked forward to taking all food in pill form, like fictional astronauts, to another extreme where supplements of any kind are frowned upon by many including in the medical establishment. Some supplements don't absorb very well, it's true, and some consumers are irresponsible -- yet atoms are atoms and molecules are molecules regardless of the source.

C1sc0cat 8y ago

Last year I was in a hospital renal unit and the guy next to me had had total kidney shutdown from taking to much Zinc - Interaction with other meds they thought.

edoloughlin 8y ago

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/more-trouble-for-antioxidants/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/more-trouble-for-antioxidan... Growing evidence that antioxidants are not good for your immune system.

Amygaz 8y ago

How do you, or actually how does the OP knows that it is the green tea part of the supplement, and not everything else not otherwise on the labeled that is killing is liver. The green tea industry is massive user of pesticide, herbicides, fungicide. Extraction process can be sketchy too using re-used solvents. Water in the process can also be contaminated. “The content of this bottle may differ from its label.”

neuralRiot 8y ago

Always get your nutrients/ antioxidants/ vitamins from its natural form, if you want the benefits of green tea then drink green tea that way you'll get all the benefits from it (water intake, refreshing and such) and will never risk overdose.