Supplementing Your Diet

Mark Sisson has some good advice today on selecting a vitamin supplement.

I would suggest that everyone who isn't eating a paleo diet supplement with a good multi-vitamin that has the qualities Mark describes. Even if you are a eating a standard AHA, government approved, low fat, food pyramid diet you need to supplement with a multi-vitamin because these diets are deficient in nutrients. The paleo diet comes closest to offering the full compliment of nutrients that your body needs.

I would add to Mark's advice to make sure your supplement has 100 micrograms of selenium. Also, pre-menopausal women may need a supplement with iron, but men and menopausal women probably do not. In fact, those latter two groups should have their blood iron levels checked with a serrum ferritin test. If you don't feel like taking the test then you should donate blood to lower your levels just in case (you most likely have too much iron anyway). I would suggest that menopausal women have the test first though. Pre-menopausal women are already "donating" blood every month, so this isn't for them.

Lastly, if you find a supplement with 400mg of magnesium citrate, malate, or aspartate, consider yourself lucky. Otherwise, most people need extra supplementation of magnesium. You're probably magnesium deficient if you don't regularly eat foods like spinach, pumpkin seeds, brazil nuts, cashews, almonds, artichokes, and halibut.

One supplement that you need for sure is omega-3 fish oil. The reason being that much of the meat we eat today is fed a grain based diet which leaves the fat of the animals with a high omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Even salmon can have a high 6:3 ratio if it's farmed raised instead of wild caught.

Try the Carlson brand.