Be careful with your supplements (A Warning from a Doctor)

My apologies but going to get on soapbox for a moment. As an ER doctor I tend to notice when people are doing foolish and or dangerous things. That applies to this forum. My being a physician does not make me smarter or more knowledgeable than anyone else here, but I have a lot of experience. Things I’d recommend to people here.

Do not assume a supplement is “safe”.

Supplements are not “natural” in the doses they come in. Consider them “drugs”.

Supplements interact with other supplements and medications.

Supplements can be toxic at higher doses.

Do not assume anyone on this forum knows what they are talking about. Some people are clearly on the wrong part of the Dunning Kruger curve.

A supplement may affect you differently than others based on other supplements and meds you take, health issues you have, your diet and your metabolism.

The benefit to risk ratio is not overwhelming. You probably will get a minor benefit from supplements, so when in doubt, stop taking them until you feel they are safe.

Exercise, a healthy diet, normal body weight, good sleep, and stress reduction are far superior to any supplements.

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I’ve had more side effects with certain supplements than with most medications.

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Do you want to rate my stack?
Where do we find someone that can do this?
I don’t think there really is anyone that can do that properly.

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On that note, @KarlT I’d love to know which things you feel good about taking and which things you’ve seen in the ER causing problems.

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Use one of the major Ais (Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT) to help you do the analysis. I recently did this with my supplement stack and we identified several severe risks that were previously unknown to me. This cause my to eliminate some supplements and adjust my dosage and protocol for others.

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I did the same and it was very helpful.