Slayer's Den

[01dragonslayer]

Feel Good, Fight Off Disease, and Live Longer​

Add years to your life and life to your years. Oh, and improve your sex life, too, with these proven health supps.​

Most people want to keep it simple. They want basic supplements proven to improve health. This short list of essential supps is for them. (And no, you won’t find multivitamins here. Sorry, but they just don’t work 17.)

1. Fish Oil (Omega-3 Fatty Acids)​

We live in an omega-6 world, and it's killing us. Nature intended for us to have a two-to-one or three-to-one ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in our bodies, but because of our fast-food, snack-food, meal-in-a-box way of life, this ratio is now more like 20 to 1 in favor of the omega-6s.

Inflammation is thus running rampant through our bodies, and the best way to stop it is to cut down on the omega-6 and start swallowing those beautiful amber fish oil caps. Take up to 4,200 milligrams a day. As a bonus, it'll even improve athletic performance.

2. Vitamin D3​

A weird thing pops out if you start looking at epidemiological studies about mortality rates from common health conditions. The farther you get from the equator, the higher the mortality rate from these diseases. Likewise, the survival rate of patients increases if the diagnosis is made in the summer months.

The answer seems clear: increased distance from the equator, along with winter, equates to decreased exposure to sunlight, particularly the UV-B radiation needed for the synthesis of Vitamin D, a vital component of the immune system.

But beyond that, there are scads of studies that support vitamin D's role in a host of health things, from more orgasms to more muscle, less fat, and increased athletic performance.

So yeah, you need adequate levels of vitamin D (blood levels above 50 ng/ml – up to about 75 or even more), but again, you're not going to know what they are without a blood test. However, for most people, taking 5,000 IU of microencapsulated vitamin D3 (the best-absorbed form) a day will more than do the job.

3. Magnesium​

The NHANES reports that 61% of Americans are deficient in magnesium, and that percentage is even higher among athletes because a lot of it's lost through sweat.

This is bad news because magnesium plays a role in over 300 biochemical reactions in the human body. It's crucial to energy production, protein synthesis, and insulin metabolism. A lack of it results in poor athletic performance, undue lactic acid buildup, muscle cramping, difficulty in losing fat, poor recovery, and even heart arrhythmias.

Intake is also inversely related to arterial calcification. Adequate magnesium levels keep calcium dissolved in the blood so that it can't "turn to rock" in your veins and arteries (or your kidneys, either, thus helping to prevent kidney stones).

And, according to a Turkish study, combining magnesium supplementation with intense exercise can increase testosterone levels by a stratospheric 25%.

4. Curcumin​

Over 2,000 studies show that curcumin is a potent warrior against cancers of the prostate, breast, liver, colon, lung, and pancreas, to name a few. It also helps fight erectile dysfunction and increases athletic performance, among other things 19. And since it's such a powerful anti-inflammatory, it does a bang-up job as a pain reliever for achy knees and joints.

Unfortunately, the body doesn't absorb curcumin very well. Simply ingesting it as a main constituent of curry powder, regardless of the amount eaten, doesn't have much effect. In the past, it was even difficult to get "in you" when taking it in supplement form.

Luckily, we now have Micellar Curcumin. It contains solid lipid curcumin particles that produce 95 times more free curcumin in the bloodstream than highly pure, standardized curcumin with piperine (Gota VS et al, 2010). If you're not taking the micellar form, you're really not taking curcumin.

5. Creatine​

Despite its reputation as a muscle and strength builder, creatine is an amazing supplement with many health applications for ordinary folk.

It helps mitochondria produce ATP so that you have more energy and have better heart function. It's been shown to lower blood sugar, increase the formation of osteoblasts, treat fatty livers, aid with fibromyalgia, stop muscle loss in old coots, and, in general, possibly help you live longer.

While there are plenty of "loading" schemes, the simplest way to incorporate creatine is to just take 5 grams a day. After 30 days, you can reduce the dosage to 3 grams.

Skip the overpriced versions. They aren't any better than simple creatine monohydrate. Just make sure you use a micronized version where the grains are absorbed better.

 

[GRIM]

I take all of these