Grok Didn’t Take Supplements, So Why Should I? (and a Giveaway)

The main objective of following the Primal Blueprint is to extract the healthiest, happiest, longest and most productive life possible from our bodies – and to look and feel good in the process.

Our 10,000-year-old Primal genes expect us to emulate the way our ancestors ate and moved; and the Primal Blueprint says we should do exactly as they expect. While there are many things we can do (or eat) today that very closely approximate what Grok did to trigger positive gene expression, there are also a number of obstacles that can thwart our attempts to be as Primal as possible. Artificial light prompts us to stay up too late and sleep too little. Electronic entertainment competes for our time when we should be out walking and basking in sunlight. We don’t always have access to ideal foods. We shower too much in water that’s too hot. We use medicines to mask our symptoms instead of allowing our bodies to deal directly with the problem. You get my point. You can’t go back to the paleolithic.

One of my tasks is to find the shortcuts—the easy ways to get the same genetic expression benefits Grok got—but by using 21st century technology or just plain old common sense. Working out in Vibram Fivefingers to simulate going barefoot is an example. Or learning how to spend time in the sun without sunscreen AND without burning. Getting more from a 20-minute full-body exercise routine than from a 3-hour cardio workout is yet another example. And given the lack of certain critical nutrients in even the healthiest diets, finding the best supplements is another.

Here are a few of the best categories of supplements I can recommend to just about everyone:

1. Antioxidant Booster

Some people claim exogenous antioxidants are useless or even harmful because we already have our three main internal “onboard” antioxidant systems that take care of most of the normal oxidative damage when we are healthy, unstressed and eating well (catalase, superoxide dismutase and glutathione). But these systems can come up short when we are under stress (who isn’t), eating too many sugars and other carbs, trans and hydrogenated fats, or drinking alcohol, or when we are exercising inappropriately. Theoretically, that still ought to be no problem, because our bodies were designed to get additional antioxidant support—and hormetic stimulus— from the foods we eat.

Unfortunately, many of our historically healthy sources of dietary antioxidants have gone extinct or have been rendered impotent by today’s aggressive factory farming techniques. In the fruit industry, for example, obtaining the highest possible sugar content has replaced antioxidants as the focus. Fruit is bred for sugar and durability, rather than nutrient content.

That’s one reason why I’ve always emphasized and encouraged the consumption of non-starchy veggies and brightly colored berries—they’re some of the most antioxidant-rich produce around. But I believe that we also need a broader mix of different antioxidants in order to emulate the wide variety of wild plant foods we evolved consuming. That means taking a supplement to obtain hard-to-get nutrients like full spectrum vitamin E (not just alpha tocopherol), mixed carotenoids (not just beta carotene), tocotrienols, NAC, alpha lipoic acid, curcumin, resveratrol, milk thistle, CoQ10 and quercetin to name a few. Now, you could make sure to eat all the foods that contain those nutrients, and in an ideal world I’d prefer you do that. But not everyone can, or even wants to. The convenience of modern technology is a reality, a tool that can be used to good effect.

Of course, too much of any one single antioxidant (in the absence of others) has been shown to have potentially negative effects. But when you take a good broad-spectrum antioxidant formula, all these antioxidants can work synergistically to mitigate oxidative damage and then help each other recycle back to their potent antioxidant form after donating an electron to the antioxidant effort. For that reason, I take a high-potency multi-vitamin loaded with extra antioxidants on an irregular basis.

Irregular? Huh?

Nowadays, I’ve got my health dialed in. I eat right, move correctly, sleep well, and kinda-sorta handle stress adequately. I don’t need to take an antioxidant supplement on a daily basis, so I take it intermittently. One pill after breakfast one day, three the next day, and none for half a week. Then I’ll take it every other day at varying dosages, then back off for another half week. That’s just an example, not a prescription. I jump around, basically. What’s funny is that because I’m fairly healthy, taking Master Formula every day could conceivably offer diminishing, or even negative returns. The same negative effects you see bandied about. Taking it the way I do now has a hormetic effect, the phenomenon whereby a moderate stressor upregulates your own antioxidant mechanisms to make you healthier and more robust.

2. Probiotics

Grok ate dirt. All day, every day. Hey, when you never wash your hands or your food (or anything for that matter) you pretty much can’t avoid it. But with all that soil came billions of soil-based organisms (mostly bacteria and yeast) that entered his mouth daily and populated his gut. Most were “friendly” bacteria that actually helped him better digest food and ward off infections. In fact, much of Grok’s (and our) immune system evolved to depend on these healthy gut bacteria living in us symbiotically. Grok also ate the occasional “unfriendly” organisms that had the potential to cause illness, but as long as the healthy flora well-outnumbered the bad guys, all was well. Several trillion bacteria live symbiotically in our gut today – some good and some bad. Much of your health depends on which of the two is winning the war.

The problem today is that we don’t eat dirt; we wash everything. Of course, given the crap that’s in and on the dirt around us, it’s probably best that we do wash it all. But in the process we never get a chance to ingest the healthy bacteria that our genes expect us to. In most healthy people this doesn’t usually present a problem. As long as there are some healthy gut bacteria present, as long as we don’t get too stressed out (stress hormones wreck the gut), too sick (diarrhea and vomiting are ways the body purges bad bacteria – but it purges good bacteria with them), or take antibiotics (antibiotics tend to kill both pathogenic and beneficial bacteria), and as long as we are eating well, those healthy bacteria can flourish and keep us well.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when stress is everywhere, where we do tend to get sick or take antibiotics, where certain processed foods support the growth of unhealthy bacteria and yeast forms while choking out the healthy flora. Many people whose diets include daily doses of yogurt or acidophilus are able to maintain healthy gut flora, but these sources aren’t always reliable (pasteurizing and added sugars can reduce their effectiveness), and not everyone can tolerate dairy that well.

For that reason, I think it’s wise to take probiotic supplements on occasion. Not necessarily every day, since once these “seeds” have been planted in a healthy gut, they tend to multiply and flourish easily on their own, especially if you feed them (see the next section). I’d certainly take extra probiotics under times of great stress or when you’ve been sick or are taking (or have just taken) a course of antibiotics. The reversal of fortune from a few days of taking probiotics can be dramatic. Better than eating dirt, I always say.

3. Prebiotics

For most of human history (and prehistory), carbohydrates were different. Rather than refined grains, white sugar, and white rice, we had wild tubers. There’s something to understand about the wild tuber: They generally don’t turn into creamy smooth starchy goodness when baked. They’re tough, fibrous things that provide a fraction of the usable energy modern cultivars provide (PDF). Whereas your typical kilogram of potato offers over 1000 calories, a kilo of many wild tuber varieties hover at around 300 calories. Eating these would have provided a moderate dose of glucose – akin to, perhaps, butternut squash—plus a load of prebiotic fiber for the gut bacteria.

That’s very important. Prebiotics are carbohydrates that we cannot digest. When we eat them, they pass through to the colon where our gut bacteria consume them. In doing so, they create short chain fatty acids like butyrate and propionate, which have a host of health benefits. This is in addition to supporting the growth and stability of our healthy gut bacteria.

We get a lot of prebiotics through foods like garlic, onions, leafy greens, and other plant matter. But it’s often easier and more reliable and more commensurate to the doses our ancestors commonly ate to take prebiotic supplements like inulin and raw potato starch (a source of a particularly potent prebiotic, resistant starch).

5. Fish Oil

In Grok’s day, virtually every animal he consumed was a decent source of vital Omega 3 fatty acids. The fish he caught had eaten algae to produce Omega 3 fatty acids rich in EPA and DHA (which helped build the larger human brain over a few hundred thousand years). The animals he hunted grazed on plants that generated high levels of Omega 3 in these meats. Even the vegetation Grok consumed provided higher levels Omega 3s than today’s vegetables. In Grok’s diet, the ratio of pro-inflammatory (bad) Omega 6 to anti-inflammatory (good and healthful) Omega 3 was close to 1:1.

Unfortunately, most people with a typical American diet today get way too much Omega 6 from seed oils and way too little Omega 3 from seafood and pastured meat, and that unhealthy ratio tends to keep many of us in a constant state of systemic inflammation. Since Omega 3 oils are found in fewer and fewer modern foods (fish being one of the few, but fresh fish also being impractical to eat regularly due to heavy-metal content) the single easiest way to overcome this serious deficit and rebalance your Omegas is to take highly purified Omega 3 fish oil supplements. The research on fish oils is extraordinary, showing benefits across the board from decreased risk for heart disease and cancer to lowering triglycerides, improving joint mobility, decreasing insulin resistance and improving brain function and mood. The drug companies are even starting to recognize the power of this “natural” medicine and have begun promoting prescription fish oil (at four times the normal price, of course!).

Nobody “needs” fish oil. But not everyone’s willing to eat seafood on a regular basis and avoid seed oils high in omega-6 fats/

6. Meal Replacement

The reality of modern life means that sometimes there just isn’t enough to time to lovingly cook a real Primal meal. Sometimes you need something quick, easy, and nourishing. To fit these requirements, I created Primal Fuel. It combines coconut milk (for healthy saturated fats, including medium chain triglycerides for easy ketone production), whey protein isolate (single most bioavailable protein around), and prebiotic fiber for a low-carb, moderate-fat, high-protein meal. Add a few ice cubes, a cup of water, maybe some greens or berries, blend it all together, and you’ve got yourself a legitimate meal in a cup. The coconut milk provides creaminess and texture, so it tastes almost exactly like a milk shake.

I’m a busy guy, though. That’s why I needed something like this to have on hand. I just find it useful to have something quick and shelf-stable that doesn’t compromise my eating regimen or health. Eating low carb often means being at a loss as to what to have for a snack or a small meal. We are so used to reaching for the bagel, a few pieces of fruit or something sweet as a snack. On the other hand, there are also times when we just don’t feel like fixing a full meal or we are strapped for time.

7.  Collagen Powder

In a world full of shrinkwrapped steaks, roasts, ground meat, and other examples of lean muscle meat, people often forget that about half of a cow is “other stuff.” That other stuff includes marrow, liver, kidney, heart, and other organs, but the vast majority of the other stuff is bone and connective tissues like tendons, ligaments, and cartilage.

These days, the bones and connective tissue usually go into pet food, glue, and other industrial products. But for millions of years, right up until your grandparents’ time, hominids consumed as much of the animal as possible. They made soups, stocks, broths, aspics, head cheese. They ate the tendons straight up. They gnawed the gristly bits at the end of bones. In other words, they consumed a lot of collagen along with the muscle meat.

Most modern people eat only the muscle meat, and this is significant. Muscle meat has a totally different amino acid profile than collagen. Meat is rich in methionine. Collagen is rich in glycine. Methionine metabolism requires and depletes glycine. In animal studies, diets high in methionine lower lifespan and cause a range of health issues—unless the diet is also balanced with glycine. We see glimpses of this occurring in humans, too.

To skirt around it, and to reduce the need to spend all my time making bone broth (which I still do, just not enough), I take collagen powder.

8. Vitamin D3

For tens of thousands of years, we lived and worked “outside.” This was the situation because, for all intents and purposes, “inside” didn’t exist. Now, we spend all day inside. Many of us simply can’t get the amount of sunlight our genes expect because of where we live, like the Toronto transplant whose ancestors evolved along the equator. For many, it’s a rare treat to see the sun, feel its rays, and make some vitamin D the old fashioned way, yet our bodies are set up to obtain vitamin D from sun exposure. It’s safer that way—we only produce as much as we need. It’s more enjoyable that way—we make endogenous opioids in response to sun exposure.

We can get vitamin D from foods, but it’s tough. Unless you want to exist entirely on a diet of sockeye salmon (there are worse things to eat, I guess) and cod liver oil, you won’t get enough vitamin D from your diet.

It’s true that sun itself carries some unique benefits separate from vitamin D. We should strive to get moderate sun exposure. But vitamin D is the most important benefit of sun exposure, and it’s coincidentally a really easy—and incredibly important—one to replace with supplementation.

9. Vitamin K2

We can eat it in natto (a sticky, gooey fermented soybean from Japan), aged gouda (my preferred method), goose liver (I always grab goose paté when I see it), and some other foods—see here for a comprehensive database—but the most reliable way to obtain this scarce yet vital nutrient is through supplementation.

Why do we care so much?

Vitamin K2 essentially directs calcium to the right spots. If you have good vitamin K2 status, calcium goes to teeth and bones. If you have bad vitamin K2 status, calcium may go to the arteries, leading to calcification.

10. Primal Calm

Instead of facing the kinds of chronic “made-up” stress we have today—like jobs we hate, traffic we hate more, and other trappings of modern society—our early ancestors faced acute stress—like encounters with dangerous animals or enemy tribes and intense hunting sessions. That’s the environment in which we evolved: big spikes in stress followed by long valleys. The environment we have now: constant elevations in stress with very little respite. The situations have flipped. Our bodies are set up to deal with acute stressors and woefully unequipped to deal with chronic stressors. That’s where supplementation can come in.

Phosphatidylserine is the lead ingredient in Primal Calm, a custom formulation that blunts the spike of cortisol in the bloodstream in response to stress. As I mentioned in yesterday’s video, my old training partner Brad and I used PS for over 20 years to help speed recovery from our crazy training binges, but PS and the supportive ingredients in Primal Calm are also effective against routine modern life stressors like jet travel, hectic daily routines, work stress, compromised sleep, and so on. 

While I don’t categorize this as a daily supplement (long-term anyway), it wouldn’t be unsafe to use Primal Calm that way if that fits your needs (just check with your doctor if you have a health condition or take any medications—standard suggestions for any supplement protocol). Personally, I’ve benefited from using Primal Calm as a “situational” supplement—taking a few capsules when my body and/or emotions are under extra stress.

Now for the Giveaway…

For one randomly chosen commenter on today’s post, I’m giving away a bottle of Primal Damage Control, a Primal Essentials Kit (Primal Omegas, Primal Sun, and Primal Probiotics) and a package of my unflavored Collagen Peptides. It’s a full Primal arsenal of nutritional support for your health and performance.

Just tell me what questions you have about supplementation. Are you wondering about specific nutrients? Special circumstances or health conditions? Particular uses or formulations? Don’t be shy.

*Be sure to comment before midnight tonight (1/24/18 PST) to be eligible to win.

I hope this post opens up the conversation to a topic I feel quite strongly about. If you have any questions or comments please drop me a line in the comment board.

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