Baisius comments on What supplements do you take, if any? - Less Wrong
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A few other things have been causing me look at supplements, and this thread is making me seriously consider developing a regimen. I'm not sure where the best place to start is. On an intuitive level, there are a few supplements that seem like they would be common sense for me:
What other low hanging fruit is there for me to investigate? The above are only what seem obvious, they are not necessarily what is optimal. Particularly, information on any supplements important for vegans would be helpful.
I would recommend Melatonin over Valerian root. The reason you don't sleep during the daytime is hormonal. Hormones are entrained by light/dark cycles, meal patterns, and exercise. Melatonin is the hormone your body produces to make you tired and to go to sleep. When you're exposed to high-energy visible light (blue is the primary culprit, followed by green) your body does not produce melatonin. When that light goes away, your body starts producing it again.
However, just blacking out your room is not usually enough to make you sleep during the day because of the natural entrainment of sleep patterns; Your body produces melatonin not just when it's dark, but when it is used to going to sleep. Melatonin supplements basically let you circumvent that whole problem because you don't have to wait for your body to produce the melatonin. Once your'e asleep, your body's natural systems take over, continuing to produce melatonin, regulating your sleep-stages, and basically allowing you to sleep normally.
Valerian root is a GABA-ergic compound (specifically, a GABA-a receptor agonist, like benzodiazepines, ambien, and alcohol) which means it does not function on your melatonin pathways, it's a sedative. Alcohol and Benzos are well-known to disrupt your sleep cycles and to favor deep sleep over REM sleep which makes it less restful and can lead to dependence. You can also end up with a glutamate-rebound effect that wakes you up when your body overcorrects after the valerian wears off. Basically, you should think of Valerian as a GABA-ergic sedative/hypnotic drug like Benzos (xanax, ativan, valium, etc.) or alcohol, not as a supplement. Just because it doesn't require a prescription does not mean it is not a drug.
If you can't tell, I'm not a fan of Valerian. I'm personally pretty sensitive to excitatory rebound effects, but I definitely got them from Valerian. I would definitely recommend staying away from that stuff.
Regarding your other points:
First of all, as a vegan, you're at risk for a lot of deficiencies. Why are you a vegan in the first place? If it's just for health reasons, I would highly recommend switching to ovo-lacto vegetarian and/or including fish. Both groups have demonstrated significantly higher longevity than vegans in epidemiological studies. Either way though, you might want to look into Cronometer. It tracks the vitamins and micronutrients in your food. If you track everything you eat for a week but try not to let it influence your food choices, then at the end of the week, you can pull a report and see where you averaged out in both micro and macronutrients. That can be a good way of identifying deficiency risks. You can then address those either through dietary interventions or supplements, the former being preferable of course.
Let me know if I can help clarify anything or if you have any questions. Cheers
Thanks for such an in-depth reply.
I'm a vegan for ethical reasons. I'm not rigid about it, (the bean burgers I mention contain small amounts of eggs, for example) but I definitely watch which animal products I consume. If there weren't healthy ways to get something critical, I would probably make an exception. I tend to believe that there is a vegan substitute for just about anything, however I'm open to be proven wrong.
I just set up a Chronometer account, that seems like a good service. Is there a way to put exact recipes in? I put in my breakfast this morning, which was some leftover homemade bread I made last night. Chronometer said that "homemade bread" had a gram of trans fats in it, which I doubt is accurate. I would suppose that there is high variation in nonstandard food items, and I'm hoping there's a good way to address this.
You're welcome, I'm just glad you found it helpful.
And yeah, Cronometer is great. You can add both custom foods and custom recipes.
Just click the "Foods" tab at the top and you can create a recipe. I have some of the things I make pretty often in there, like certain smoothies and other things that I always use the same proportions of.
You can also create custom foods if the brand of some product you buy has a very different nutrient profile from their defaults, you can enter it as a custom food (though you will often miss out on some of the micronutrient data that they have, so be careful with this, or copy the micronutrient info that you don't know about product from one of their default database foods). Similarly, if there are duplicate records for a certain food you want to use, try looking at a few different ones to see which one has the most complete micronutrient data, then make sure you use that one.
And the Profile tab lets you set your targets for macro and micronutrients.
That's really all you need to know. With this, you can find out for yourself if you might be getting too little or too much of anything and then experiment with different interventions. I would recommend making sure you don't forget to track any fats or cooking oils you use. That way, you'll know if you're getting too much omega 6. The preset allowances for n-6 are probably too high. I encourage you to do your own research on the subject, but my personal recommendation is to try to keep your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio under 4:1. (Keep in mind only EPA and DHA count towards your n-3 number. "Other" omega-3s are only 3% bioavailable)
Again, let me know if you have any questions and good luck!