Supplement Ranking

Please point me to the relevant thread if this has been attempted before.

I think we should attempt to create a ranking of supplements (compounds not manufacturers) based on what we conclude to be their order of importance. The goal would be overall health and compounds would be evaluated on several dimensions: benefits, volume and quality of research behind it, etc. The average person who is currently taking no supplements could interprete it as the order in which they should begin adding new supplements. For example I'd assume the list would start something like:

1) Multivitamin
2) EPA/DHA
.
.
.

If you guys think this is a good idea, I think we should first propose a set of definitions and make clear what the goals of this list would be. Then we can begin discussion and debate the relative rankings of things. Of course, our list will never be complete, since it will need to be updated as new findings emerge. It will be a sort of ongoing project we will all take part in. What do you guys think? Does this interest anyone as much as it does me?

Please point me to the relevant thread if this has been attempted before.

I think we should attempt to create a ranking of supplements (compounds not manufacturers) based on what we conclude to be their order of importance. The goal would be overall health and compounds would be evaluated on several dimensions: benefits, volume and quality of research behind it, etc. The average person who is currently taking no supplements could interprete it as the order in which they should begin adding new supplements. For example I'd assume the list would start something like:

1) Multivitamin
2) EPA/DHA
.
.
.

If you guys think this is a good idea, I think we should first propose a set of definitions and make clear what the goals of this list would be. Then we can begin discussion and debate the relative rankings of things. Of course, our list will never be complete, since it will need to be updated as new findings emerge. It will be a sort of ongoing project we will all take part in. What do you guys think? Does this interest anyone as much as it does me?

great idea

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Check out this thread:

Top ten supplements for health

I think this is a wonderful idea. Somehow it could be done as a star rating type thing where everyone could rate each supplement and the scores would be averaged and then given a star or percentage rating kind of like Iherb or other supp stores do for their user opinions.

My html skills are rusty and I don't know the capacities of this board but I am sure such a thing could be done anyone out there with the knowledge to do this?

An interesting idea. It can be quite daunting for a newcomer to the field to work around where to start off, let alone build a complete regimen.

What I'm thinking of is to have a sort of step by step guide explaining in what order to add things. Say, something like:

- Vitamins
- Minerals
- Omega fatty acids
- Anti oxidants
- Anti carcinogens
- Nootropics
- Telomere lenghteners

Of course before you even begin building a supplement regimen for yourself you'd have to fix your diet and create a work out regimen, otherwise you're just wasting time.

Of course before you even begin building a supplement regimen for yourself you'd have to fix your diet and create a work out regimen, otherwise you're just wasting time.

This gets repeated a lot, but it is not entirely logical. Suppose that a weak diet and little or no exercise were a given. Then what would you do? Supplement, or give up?

Check out this thread:

Top ten supplements for health

also check out this thread:

http://www.imminst.o...nts-t19963.html

This gets repeated a lot, but it is not entirely logical. Suppose that a weak diet and little or no exercise were a given. Then what would you do? Supplement, or give up?

An interesting comment, since it can be used to describe my own situation right now.

However that's not an excuse. I understand that everyones circumstances are different, but unless you're paralyzed and destitute, a "weak diet and little or no exercise" cannot be a given. If you do not exercise, your muscles mass and bone density begin to deteriorate. If your diet is weak, you'll end up chronically malnourished and will gain weight.

These two facts alone will cause more pathology and damage to your body than most other factors combined. And no amount of supplements will make up for that.

If you run your body into the ground by your 60's you won't really benefit from the supplements that we take to push our vitality into our 120's.

What you're asking is the same as "Should I still be taking anti-carcinogens if smoking is a given?" I mean, yes, it's better than not taking them at all, but if avoiding cancer was your main priority then you'd give up smoking in the first place.

Edited by Hudzon, 21 March 2008 - 06:07 AM.

This gets repeated a lot, but it is not entirely logical. Suppose that a weak diet and little or no exercise were a given. Then what would you do? Supplement, or give up?

An interesting comment, since it can be used to describe my own situation right now.

However that's not an excuse. I understand that everyones circumstances are different, but unless you're paralyzed and destitute, a "weak diet and little or no exercise" cannot be a given.

Of course it can. It describes the majority of people, and behavior is a very difficult thing to change. If you supplement some of the missing nutrients, that has to help your health. Supplementation may also improve your energy level (ALCAR, for example) and might lead you to naturally increase your physical activity. I think it did that for me, in fact. A little bit of success is a big motivator, too. If you tell someone that they should not take any supps until they completely revamp their lifestyle, for most people that's the same as telling them they shouldn't take supps, period.

This gets repeated a lot, but it is not entirely logical. Suppose that a weak diet and little or no exercise were a given. Then what would you do? Supplement, or give up?

An interesting comment, since it can be used to describe my own situation right now.

However that's not an excuse. I understand that everyones circumstances are different, but unless you're paralyzed and destitute, a "weak diet and little or no exercise" cannot be a given.

Of course it can. It describes the majority of people, and behavior is a very difficult thing to change. If you supplement some of the missing nutrients, that has to help your health. Supplementation may also improve your energy level (ALCAR, for example) and might lead you to naturally increase your physical activity. I think it did that for me, in fact. A little bit of success is a big motivator, too. If you tell someone that they should not take any supps until they completely revamp their lifestyle, for most people that's the same as telling them they shouldn't take supps, period.

Interesting note about the ALCAR, I just started taking it.

Anyway, I think it's a great idea. We should have a list maintained kind of like a wikipage, make it a sticky as that's probably what most people come here for. I don't really know how to rank the supplements. I suppose we could list them by voting and then allow each person to comment on the effectiveness and link to medical publications -- the subjective comments should definitely be kept seperate from the medical publications. But yeah, currently I have just been looking at other people's regimens for ideas. But there is a lot of repeated work in this approach.

I went through the top 10 and top 20 threads listed above, plus added my own list, and counted occurrences of the supplements. I then ranked them by number of mentions. In some cases, I broke combination supplements that contain more than one compound into the simpler compounds for purposes of ranking mentions. The top 10 thread was from late '06, the top 20 thread was from early '08. Here's the list I came up with, with the number of mentions listed after each supplement:

Fish Oil 16
Lipoic Acid 14
Multi Vitamin 13
Green Tea Extract 11
ALCAR 11
Benfotiamine 10
Pomegranate Extract 9
Vitamin C 9
Magnesium 9
Vitamin D 8
Resveratrol 8
Carnosine 7
Melatonin 6
Cocoa 6
Milk Thistle 6
Blueberry extract 4
NAC 4
Whey 3
Creatine 3
Deprenyl 3
Lecithin 3
CoQ10/Ubiquinol 3
Ginkgo biloba 3
Curcumin/Turmeric 3
Pycnogenol/Pine Bark 2
Pyridoxamine 2
IP-6 2
Garlic extract 2
SAM-e 2
Arginine 2
Niacin 2
Probiotic 2
Idebenone 2
Rhodiola 2
DHEA 2
Zinc 2
Taurine 2
Ginger
Astaxanthin
Broccoli extract (std. For sulforaphane)
GliSODin
Metformin
Aminoguanidine
ALCAR Arginate
Cinnamon
Lysine
Borage Seed Oil
Flaxseed Oil
Safflower Oil
Grape Seed extract
TMG
Astragalus
hormone supporting supps after blood tests : (dhea, tribulus, Tongkat, anti-estrogen, etc.)
adaptogens : (ashwagandha, rhodiola , bacopa, maca etc.)
Ortho Bone
Strontium
K2
Methyl B12
Gamma tocotrienols
Ethyl Alcohol

Edit: fixed resveratrol double listing. Edit again: fixed Curcumin/Turmeric and Taurine double listing.

Edited by niner, 01 September 2009 - 08:21 PM.

I went through the top 10 and top 20 threads listed above, plus added my own list, and counted occurrences of the supplements. I then ranked them by number of mentions. In some cases, I broke combination supplements that contain more than one compound into the simpler compounds for purposes of ranking mentions. The top 10 thread was from late '06, the top 20 thread was from early '08. Here's the list I came up with, with the number of mentions listed after each supplement:

Fish Oil 16
Lipoic Acid 14
Multi Vitamin 13
Green Tea Extract 11
ALCAR 11
Benfotiamine 10
Pomegranate Extract 9
Vitamin C 9
Magnesium 9
Vitamin D 8
Carnosine 7
Melatonin 6
Cocoa 6
Milk Thistle 6
Resveratrol 5
Blueberry extract 4
NAC 4
Whey 3
Creatine 3
Deprenyl 3
Lecithin 3
Resveratrol 3
CoQ10/Ubiquinol 3
Ginkgo biloba 3
Pycnogenol/Pine Bark 2
Pyridoxamine 2
IP-6 2
Garlic extract 2
Curcumin/Turmeric 2
SAM-e 2
Arginine 2
Niacin 2
Probiotic 2
Idebenone 2
Rhodiola 2
DHEA 2
Zinc 2
Turmeric
Taurine
Ginger
Astaxanthin
Broccoli extract (std. For sulforaphane)
GliSODin
Metformin
Aminoguanidine
ALCAR Arginate
Cinnamon
Lysine
Borage Seed Oil
Flaxseed Oil
Safflower Oil
Grape Seed extract
TMG
Astragalus
hormone supporting supps after blood tests : (dhea, tribulus, Tongkat, anti-estrogen, etc.)
adaptogens : (ashwagandha, rhodiola , bacopa, maca etc.)
Ortho Bone
Strontium
K2
Methyl B12
Gamma tocotrienols
Taurine
Ethyl Alcohol

Great work, niner! Thanks for your help!

Resveratrol 5
Resveratrol 3

Resv. mentioned twice?

Resveratrol 5
Resveratrol 3

Resv. mentioned twice?

Thanks scorpe; it's fixed. They should have been combined.

Resveratrol 5
Resveratrol 3

Resv. mentioned twice?

Thanks scorpe; it's fixed. They should have been combined.

Great idea with the list! Now I guess the next thing to do is to start moving things around. Do we all agree that a multivitamin is priority #1?

Also:

http://www.lef.org/V...Top10/index.htm

I went through the top 10 and top 20 threads listed above, plus added my own list, and counted occurrences of the supplements. I then ranked them by number of mentions. In some cases, I broke combination supplements that contain more than one compound into the simpler compounds for purposes of ranking mentions. The top 10 thread was from late '06, the top 20 thread was from early '08. Here's the list I came up with, with the number of mentions listed after each supplement:

Fish Oil 16
Lipoic Acid 14
Multi Vitamin 13
Green Tea Extract 11
ALCAR 11
Benfotiamine 10
Pomegranate Extract 9
Vitamin C 9
Magnesium 9
Vitamin D 8
Resveratrol 8
Carnosine 7
Melatonin 6
Cocoa 6
Milk Thistle 6
Blueberry extract 4
NAC 4
Whey 3
Creatine 3
Deprenyl 3
Lecithin 3
CoQ10/Ubiquinol 3
Ginkgo biloba 3
Pycnogenol/Pine Bark 2
Pyridoxamine 2
IP-6 2
Garlic extract 2
Curcumin/Turmeric 2
SAM-e 2
Arginine 2
Niacin 2
Probiotic 2
Idebenone 2
Rhodiola 2
DHEA 2
Zinc 2
Turmeric
Taurine
Ginger
Astaxanthin
Broccoli extract (std. For sulforaphane)
GliSODin
Metformin
Aminoguanidine
ALCAR Arginate
Cinnamon
Lysine
Borage Seed Oil
Flaxseed Oil
Safflower Oil
Grape Seed extract
TMG
Astragalus
hormone supporting supps after blood tests : (dhea, tribulus, Tongkat, anti-estrogen, etc.)
adaptogens : (ashwagandha, rhodiola , bacopa, maca etc.)
Ortho Bone
Strontium
K2
Methyl B12
Gamma tocotrienols
Taurine
Ethyl Alcohol

Edit: fixed resveratrol double listing.

You mention curcumin/tumeric twice too Surprised Acai extract didn't get a mention...seems very promising indeed.

Edited by shaggy, 01 September 2009 - 07:43 PM.

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You mention curcumin/tumeric twice too Surprised Acai extract didn't get a mention...seems very promising indeed.

Fixed that, better late than never, and even found another bug; Taurine listed twice too. It's interesting to look at this list from a year and a half ago. I expect that it would look different today. Vitamin D would probably move up, benfotiamine down...