The probiotic I chose to start with is Garden of Eden – Primal Defense Ultra.

Great article, thanks for all the work.

I think it’s inadvisable to supplement based on anecdotal evidence from benefits that are just as likely to have been the result of the placebo effect as anything else.

I’ve seen this not only in my own life but also others. The trick is though, to weave through the minefield of information and claims out there.

Mark is right. Antioxidants are important.

One problem I see though, is that too many people (not on this blog) substitute supplementation in place of sound nutrition.

Therefore, all attempts to determine optimal levels of nutrients in supplements are highly suspect — the best we can do is note that certain gross deficiencies cause disease and guess the optimal levels using prior beliefs. The most compelling scientific guess for the optimal levels of nutrients to consume is to use the levels obtained by primal humans. This is a good guess because it’s reasonable to assume that humans adapted to this diet/lifestyle. This is what is so compelling about the primal blueprint in general. Of course, the conclusion to draw from this is that if you have a primal lifestyle, supplementation is at least as likely to be harmful (to both health and wallet) as helpful.

I believe it’s prudent to wait for overwhelming scientific evidence that particular supplements promote health before using them. There are two types of situations when supplementation would be called for.

First, if a placebo-controlled study involving only participants with a healthy diet and lifestyle were to show that altering our nutrient intakes from the primal blueprint lead to less disease, this would indicate that supplementation is prudent. Mark, are you aware of any such studies?

Second, if there is reason to believe a particular individual has a specific deficiency, then supplementation may be called for. For this reason, vitamin D may be a prudent supplement for many people to take since it is obtained primarily from the sun (though getting it from the sun is probably preferable). Also, if a doctor diagnoses a deficiency of a particular nutrient, that would also obviously motivate supplementation. There may be a case to be made that seniors should supplement because their digestive systems may not be functioning close to optimally anymore, but this should still probably be done under the guidance of a doctor.

I personally think that a basic (100% RDA) multivitamin may be prudent, but only to prevent a fluke deficiency disease, not to try to optimize health. It’s my understanding that the benefits of even a basic multivitamin are controversial, but at least it’s probably harmless because the levels of the nutrients are not megadoses.