I’ve suspected for a while now that a good chunk of common health issues might be caused by malnutrition. Like energy needs are being met and/or exceeded, but not necessarily the case for each nutrient.
Like I’ve started to recognize when I’m protein deficient. I get a headache and general unwell feeling. I’ll have an appetite for things with protein but it doesn’t just feel like hunger.
And personally, if I’m feeling depressed and unmotivated to do anything, even what’s usually fun, I can resolve that with a vitamin b-complex supplement (usually I take vitamin D and K2 with it, so those could be playing a role), and if that doesn’t have me feeling better (as in normal, not just “less depressed”) within 15 minutes or so, I also take a magnesium supplement. This may or may not work for anyone else (it requires that your depression be caused by b and/or magnesium deficiency), but it has consistently worked for me since 2020, when it helped get over the exhaustion that might have been long covid.
Micronutrients are essential for many different body functions and I think it’s easy to miss some if you don’t have a lot of variety in your regular diet, especially if you mostly eat processed stuff where the process could inadvertently remove or change the nutrients into something we can’t absorb.
I agree that one’s biome can also play a big role, though I think nutrient intake (both what you consume and what you absorb) and gut biome health can end up in a vicious cycle because those microbes also need the right nutrients to stay healthy and can be exposed to substances that are fine for us but toxic to them. I haven’t looked in a while, but this was my objection to all the studies that “showed” glyphosate was safe, as the ones I saw were mostly about how it doesn’t react with any of our own bio-processes, but no information about whether that’s the same for the bacteria we have a symbiotic relationship with.
Yeah I think that’s an important line to walk: the conversation between the body and the mind. A lot of people in my life seem to really struggle with body awareness. They wait for the signals from their bodies to reach a certain threshold before paying attention. It’s like waiting until your car’s low fuel light is flashing before starting to look for a gas station.
On the other hand, you can go too far… But maybe that’s a good thing? The placebo effect is real. Any time I take supplements, especially when the science is mixed, I wonder whether the supplement actually works or if it’s just placebo. But at the end of the day I don’t care which. I still take my vitamin D in the winter, my vitamin C when I start to feel a cold coming on.
Yeah, I think at this point I do get the placebo effect first, pretty much immediately after taking the vitamin b-complex, as it works faster than I’d expect my body to really access those nutrients (though it is water soluable, so maybe it does start getting absorbed immediately), and I have had times where it feels like just the B is going to do the trick but then the tiredness returns a few mins later and I add the magnesium.
My approach to supplements in general is an assumption that I generally get most of what I need from my diet (which is better these days than it used to be earlier in my adult life), but that I’m probably not meeting all the needs consistently, so I’ll supplement it occasionally, either with a dose of multivitamin when I’m not feeling like anything is missing or with specific ones if I’m experiencing potential deficiency symptoms. I don’t want to supplement into overload, which can be as bad or worse than deficiency.
Also gotta watch out for the scam supplements, or ones suggested based on single properties without considering other consequences of them.
Eg, a little while ago, I bought some bromelain on a whim after seeing a claim it could dissolve eye floaters. Before taking one, I realized I had acted too quickly in buying them and did more reading and found out that even if it can get past the blood brain barrier and into the eyes (which is dubious at best), there’s nothing to stop it from dissolving other proteins inside the eyes, ones that aren’t just minor annoyances (speaking about my own situation, I understand floaters can get much worse than just annoying), and end up hurting your vision.
I’ve suspected for a while now that a good chunk of common health issues might be caused by malnutrition. Like energy needs are being met and/or exceeded, but not necessarily the case for each nutrient.
Like I’ve started to recognize when I’m protein deficient. I get a headache and general unwell feeling. I’ll have an appetite for things with protein but it doesn’t just feel like hunger.
And personally, if I’m feeling depressed and unmotivated to do anything, even what’s usually fun, I can resolve that with a vitamin b-complex supplement (usually I take vitamin D and K2 with it, so those could be playing a role), and if that doesn’t have me feeling better (as in normal, not just “less depressed”) within 15 minutes or so, I also take a magnesium supplement. This may or may not work for anyone else (it requires that your depression be caused by b and/or magnesium deficiency), but it has consistently worked for me since 2020, when it helped get over the exhaustion that might have been long covid.
Micronutrients are essential for many different body functions and I think it’s easy to miss some if you don’t have a lot of variety in your regular diet, especially if you mostly eat processed stuff where the process could inadvertently remove or change the nutrients into something we can’t absorb.
I agree that one’s biome can also play a big role, though I think nutrient intake (both what you consume and what you absorb) and gut biome health can end up in a vicious cycle because those microbes also need the right nutrients to stay healthy and can be exposed to substances that are fine for us but toxic to them. I haven’t looked in a while, but this was my objection to all the studies that “showed” glyphosate was safe, as the ones I saw were mostly about how it doesn’t react with any of our own bio-processes, but no information about whether that’s the same for the bacteria we have a symbiotic relationship with.
Yeah I think that’s an important line to walk: the conversation between the body and the mind. A lot of people in my life seem to really struggle with body awareness. They wait for the signals from their bodies to reach a certain threshold before paying attention. It’s like waiting until your car’s low fuel light is flashing before starting to look for a gas station.
On the other hand, you can go too far… But maybe that’s a good thing? The placebo effect is real. Any time I take supplements, especially when the science is mixed, I wonder whether the supplement actually works or if it’s just placebo. But at the end of the day I don’t care which. I still take my vitamin D in the winter, my vitamin C when I start to feel a cold coming on.
Yeah, I think at this point I do get the placebo effect first, pretty much immediately after taking the vitamin b-complex, as it works faster than I’d expect my body to really access those nutrients (though it is water soluable, so maybe it does start getting absorbed immediately), and I have had times where it feels like just the B is going to do the trick but then the tiredness returns a few mins later and I add the magnesium.
My approach to supplements in general is an assumption that I generally get most of what I need from my diet (which is better these days than it used to be earlier in my adult life), but that I’m probably not meeting all the needs consistently, so I’ll supplement it occasionally, either with a dose of multivitamin when I’m not feeling like anything is missing or with specific ones if I’m experiencing potential deficiency symptoms. I don’t want to supplement into overload, which can be as bad or worse than deficiency.
Also gotta watch out for the scam supplements, or ones suggested based on single properties without considering other consequences of them.
Eg, a little while ago, I bought some bromelain on a whim after seeing a claim it could dissolve eye floaters. Before taking one, I realized I had acted too quickly in buying them and did more reading and found out that even if it can get past the blood brain barrier and into the eyes (which is dubious at best), there’s nothing to stop it from dissolving other proteins inside the eyes, ones that aren’t just minor annoyances (speaking about my own situation, I understand floaters can get much worse than just annoying), and end up hurting your vision.