Unlocking the Power of Supplements: Continuing the Research

Previously, I talked about Protein, Creatine, BCAAs, and Omega-3 Fatty Acids and their effectiveness for us in our fitness and health journeys. Check that out here: Unlocking the Power of Supplement: A General View.

Dietary supplements can be a great tool for everyone, regardless of age, fitness level, or health status to improve their general health. In an attempt to continue learning and improving my diet plan.

As I did in my previous post, I added a conclusion area to each section in case don’t want to read through paragraphs of text.

Continued List of Supplements I took a look at: 

1. Vitamin D
2. Multivitamins
3. Pre-workout
4. Glucosamine & Chondroitin

For a look into Protein, Creatine, BCAAs, and Omega-3 Fatty Acids and their purpose, check out my other blog post: Power of Supplement: A General View.

Vitamin D is a key vitamin for the body to absorb and retain calcium and phosphorous, important to bone structure. On top of its main purpose, studies have shown positive results in reducing cancer cell growth, controlling infections, and reducing inflammation. Receptors for vitamin D are found all over our body, which leads scientists to believe that vitamin D serves many functions, apart from the few that have been identified. Vitamin D is found in only a few sources, like fatty fish, egg yolks, cheese, and animal livers. Some mushrooms are also a great source of vitamin D. Due to vitamin D being difficult to obtain in our food, it is most easily obtained through supplements and time in the sun (from UVB rays).

It is recommended to get ~15 mcg (600 IU) daily, which increases slightly over time as you age to 20 mcg (800 IU) daily at 70 years old. The maximum limit on vitamin D intake is set around 100 mcg (4000 IU) before harmful effects are seen. Over 1 billion people are estimated to have inadequate levels of vitamin D in their blood, seen between various age groups and ethnicities.

Vitamin D has been a popular area of research due to the unknown level of benefits that can be gained from this. Various areas of research where vitamin D has shown potential help is bone health, muscle strength, cancer prevention,  reduction in risk of heart disease, improved immune function, assistance in cognitive decline issues, fighting against the development of type 2 diabetes, and a surprisingly significant 7% decrease in premature death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and respiratory diseases. (Source)

Conclusion: Vitamin D is a key nutrient for general health. Due to the difficulty in getting daily required amounts of vitamin D through diet, is recommended to use supplements to get a daily 15 mcg (600 IU) dosage. There is some caution required, as taking too much vitamin D can actually hurt you overall, causing unhealthy weight loss, irregular heartbeats, and hardening of blood vessels that lead to heart and kidney damage. (Source) Based on recommended dosages and pricing, I recommend Nature Made Vitamin D3.

Multivitamins are the generalized answer to issues like what we mentioned above with vitamin D but extend to all vitamins needed. Multivitamins tend to be very helpful for individuals who have issues getting a range of needed nutrients due to other issues, like a temporary, limiting diet, conditions that hurt the body’s ability to absorb nutrients, or states where higher than average nutrient amounts are needed, like pregnancy. (Source) General advice claims that multivitamins tend to be either useless or detrimental for most individuals, because you are already getting most of your nutrients in a common diet, in which case you do not need them anymore, and your body will not use them. In the case that you taking a multivitamin (which tends to give you 90%+ of your daily value per vitamin) is pushing you past recommended daily levels, you can actually cause more harm than help. Some vitamins have detrimental effects when taken in too high of doses, or potentially block other nutrients from being properly processed by your body.

Articles detailed in Harvard Public Health detail studies on multivitamins that have shown that there has been some improvement in cancer prevention (Gaziano 2012 (1)) and improved cognitive health in older men and women (> 60 years of age) (Sesso 2022 (2) & Baker 2023 (3)), but other studies focused on cardiovascular disease (Sesso 2012 (4) & Mursu 2011 (5) or general mortality lack significant conclusions. John Hopkins Medicine conveys a similar message to the inefficacy of multivitamins.

Conclusion: Multivitamins are not the fix-all treatment for anyone trying to live a healthy lifestyle. As has been shown in many studies, long-term multivitamin use has not fixed underlying health issues. Based on all the readings, I personally believe that this is due to a few reasons:

(A) Multivitamins do not target your specific issues, they act more as a vitamin filler for areas that your particular diet may be lacking.

(B) Many studies where multivitamins are used do not regulate other vitamin intakes, the diet of different participants, and the state of underlying conditions vs when the multivitamins were starting to be used, which leads to lots of inconclusive data.

(C) Due to their purpose being a general view, I suspect that many people take them and assume it will fix all their deficiencies, but supplements are to be treated as supplements to your diet, not replacements.

Conclusion: Overall, for general health, multivitamins are not a bad addition to your daily plan but are not as effective as going through a bit more effort in auditing your diet and identifying which specific nutrients you may be lacking, and focusing on those. I think of them as the lazy answer to good health, but lazy answers always get sub-par results. For those who want to supplement multivitamins as an extra measure to their diet, I recommend Amazon Basics Adult Multivitamin, as it does not seem to overdo it and its the best price value. If you want to guarantee that 100% daily value provided by the multivitamin, then I would recommend Nature Made Multivitamin Tablets, though this option is a bit more expensive.

Pre-workout supplements, obviously, are taken before you exercise. The main point of these supplements, if you look at any post or reviewer, is to allow for a better workout by lessening fatigue during intense movements and also to help your body recover. (Source) This effect is said to become more effective and stable after a few weeks of regular use.

With the increase in popularity of pre-workout supplements, there is also an increase in studies being done on the effects. Martinez, 2016 (6) did a study on 13 male patients, each reporting weekly for 4 weeks. First-week testing was an initial session to familiarize with the supplement, and then subsequent weeks were performance tests being run compared to baseline testing which was done on week two. All tests were run 20 minutes after ingesting the supplement provided. Random placebos were tested on week three as well.

The performance tests were the following:

1. Medicine Ball Put for upper body explosive power
2. Vertical Jump Test for lower body explosive power
3. One-rep max bench press for upper body strength
4. Wingate Anaerobic Power Test for anaerobic power

When comparing real and placebo, there was significant improvement in anaerobic mean power, but no significant differences in any of the other three tests. The takeaway is that pre-workouts do improve anaerobic ability during your workout, allowing you to push more during your workout, but there is no effect on your individual power or strength.

Another Study, Kedia, 2014 (7) conducted a two-part test where healthy men and women undergoing a supervised training program were tested before and after using a pre-workout blend.

Part 1 was a safety study where all participants had their resting heart rates, blood, ECH, and blood chemistry/blood counts tested. Results showed an increase in blood pressure of 3.0 – 5.4/3.0-3.9 mm Hg (SBP/DBP) compared to the placebo group of 0.3 – 1.2 mmHg SBP (DBP not reported). All other tests did not see significant results and were not reported.

Part 2 consisted of a six-week training program of 43 young (24.3 +/- 2.9 years) and healthy (70.5 +/- 3.1 inches by 83.8 +/- 9.6 kg) supplemented with daily pre-workout doses, mixed between real and placebo. Strength tests, endurance tests, and DEXA testing for body composition were run on weeks 3 and 6 with weekly self-reported scores for energy and concentration.

The study concluded that pre-workout (containing creatine, caffeine, and other proprietary materials like dendrobium extract) improved subjective levels of energy and concentration, and seemed to increase focus and lessen fatigue compared to the placebo (which contained caffeine only). Despite this effect on mental concentration during a workout, there was no statistically significant effect on measurements done on body composition and exercise performance over six weeks of training. There were also no harmful effects recorded.

Conclusion: Based on the studies mentioned and my own personal experiences, pre-workout supplements are a great addition to the purpose of anaerobic power and general energy and concentration levels during a workout. Theoretically, this would allow you to complete more intensive and effective workouts and reduce fatigue. Surprisingly, this increase in energy and concentration during workouts did not translate to a relative increase in strength or performance between groups taking pre-workout and not. Finally, studies showed that over 6 weeks, there were no negative effects noticed with regular blood pressure and blood chemistry tests. Anecdotally, I can attest to the feeling of more energy and focus in your workouts, though I personally do not use pre-workout regularly as I’ve seen the effects are too strong for my body to handle (I feel aches and pain in my chest.) Overall, I would recommend that pre-workout is a great addition to any workout plan, assuming you are safe with your dosage and learn how much of which preworkout is most effective for you. (I have had some pre-workouts that literally hurt me after taking them, and some that provide me with the energy and mental feeling to have the greatest workouts I’ve ever had.) As multiple studies conclude that pre-workouts are generally safe, there is no harm in exploring the area and seeing what works for you. Personally, I recommend trying out Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Pre-workout as it has a good set of ingredients to get you energized and a healthy dose of vitamins. If you want a pre-workout that doesn’t have almost 2 cups worth of caffeine in it though (as most pre-workouts do), I would recommend trying PROSUPPS Dr. Jekyll Signature Pre-Workout Powder, as it removes the caffeine while also keeping the price in a reasonable range. There are many more pre-workouts without caffeine, though they tend to be 30-40% more expensive than the average.

Glucosamine and Chondroitin are both constituents of cartilage, which is a component of your joints. Supplements containing these building blocks are used to maintain cartilage health and essentially help with joint pain, either in treatments or as prevention. Robert H. Shmerlin, MD details two studies in his Harvard Health article that question these claims (Source). Roman-Blas, 2017 (8) had 164 patients with knee pain where he treated them with a combination of glucosamine and chondroitin or a placebo, originally planned for six months, was cut short due to some patients that were receiving the real supplement to feel more pain during the testing. Meng, 2022 (9) reported in his review on the efficacy and safety of glucosamine and chondroitin, that among 3793 total patients, based on WOMAC score (a pain measurement tool specifically created for osteoarthritis patients to measure their total pain and functionality), there was statistically significant improvement in pain, while with the VAS score, there was no difference between groups. They concluded that glucosamine and chondroitin are effective and superior to other treatments to a certain extent, but need more investigation. The supplement is now considered safe, as there were no differences in the test and placebo groups, though the drug is not currently FDA-regulated.

Glucosamine and Chondroitin do have some side effects, however, like heartburn, headaches, drowsiness, diarrhea, and allergic reactions if you are allergic to shellfish. Some drug interactions also need to be taken into account when taking this supplement.

Conclusion: Assuming potential drug interactions and allergies are not an issue for you, the supplement does seem worth the chance to try and see if it helps you, given that there are no safety issues with the supplement and there are some studies that claim it can help (it is also pretty cheap). From my personal experience, I have had a lot of knee, shoulder, and back pain at various points in my life, and I cannot report that using the supplement was very helpful for me. However, I was not very consistent in my usage nor did I use this long term, so I cannot fully speak to its effects. Based on recommended dosages of ~1500-3000 mg (Source), I would recommend Kirkland Signature Extra Strength Glucosamine, as it is not too expensive, does not overdo it on the dosage, and is USP-certified which helps guarantee a good quality product.

After taking some time to research and understand the purposes of each of these supplements and what the data shows in terms of their effectiveness and real-world use cases, I plan to continue my current habit of taking a vitamin D pill every morning with my breakfast. Before this research, I did take multivitamins, but I’ve decided to stop this practice and save a little bit of money there. It was an extra measure that seemed unnecessary given my current diet. Pre-workout is something I stopped taking a while back because I have had very mixed results with it, where different pre-workouts affected me very differently, some great, and some not so good at all. I have recently either had tea/coffee for the caffeine pick up or, more recently, have been having Bryan Johnson’s Green Giant, which is a great method to get the energy boost from the amino acids, creatine, and proteins from the collagen added in. At the time of this post, Bryan Johnson has discontinued it in an attempt to simplify his blueprint, but I still find it to be quite the drink to have in the mornings. (Check out his blueprint here). Lastly, I mentioned already that I have tried Glucosamine and Chondroitin before and found it ineffective for me. I have found it more effective to do stretches and strengthening exercises every morning to slowly build up my body’s mobility and stability.

Thank you for taking the time to read some of my work. Check out my other blog posts here. If you guys ever have any questions, feel free to reach out or comment on the post! There are also so many resources online, that I encourage everyone to take some time to do their own research so you can make the best choices based on your specific lifestyle.