Thread to answer Susma's questions

"I am a babe here.


I eat a balance diet as I know one from my experience and from reading, but of course critically of healthy diet.

I abstain completely from so-called diet supplements, but I have some friends who take diet supplements religiously.

And being a busybody inclined person which I maintain is normal with conscious rational entities unlike such ones consigned to the mental hospital, I tell these friends to concentrate on balanced diet, developing a good psyche, and to engage in physical activities, which should save them a lot from the pocketbook, and give a good break to their liver, kidneys, and bladder, and other systems and assorted organs in their physiology.

That word, stack, does it refer to a regime of such substances you guys take regularly to enhance, the word right? your life and operation?

And are they essentially what the FDA would approve as food supplements?

The end product to make you guys live happier lives and longer lives?

What do you guys say?


If you have to give me a slap, do it on my wrist; because I am exercising my natural right to ask questions of people engaged in what I might consider exotic intake of chemicals, all in the name of achieving knowledge and maybe wisdom."


Susma,

It sounds like you do not believe in supps. No problem.

We take supps and feel there are health and..intelligence benefits. There are studies and people's experience's to back this up.

Yes stack is a bunch of supps.

I don't think the FDA "approves" of most of these (i.e. they would like to ban them if they had their way), but yes these are what as classified as supplements.

We can make suggestions for you to start taking if you wish.

Oh and a balanced diet could mean almost anything depending on who is using those words.

Here's my reply.
You posed excellent questions that deserve a pat on the back rather than a slap on the wrist. I think you described quite well the purposes for which I take my "stack" - to enhance my life and operation. Essentially, the foundation of the supplements I take are antioxidants and antiglycation agents. The beneficial effect of various anti-oxidant substances have been well documented by medical literature and cause a reduction in oxidative stress, which has been implicated in all sorts of diseases as well as in the aging process.

Nootropics are the focus of this forum and many of them have similar health benefits but are purported to have some additional effects in terms of aiding the brain. This is an area I have been a little confused over and still am. The brain is enormously complex and governs everything we experience. Therefore, what exactly each substance does to us is very hard to completely understand. What we do know, however, is that various chemicals have been evaluated by scientific standards for things like memory. These effects are what many of us seek in choosing and sticking with a given combination of drugs.

It is impossible to say if these supplements are able to extend our lives on an individual basis, but data from certain drugs, like selegeline and certain antioxidants, has demonstrated such potential in rats and other animals.

Happiness is also super-subjective and I don't believe my supplementation has helped me very much in that realm. The more I learn, the more I realize in my opinion that the information that can be shared by a forum like this is very constrained by what we do not know. I think they are very important for sharing subjective experiences and spreading what doctors and researchers have learned to a lay audience, but SO many questions are still unanswerable. For example: is it a good idea for someone my age (22) to take l-deprenyl if I have no physiological disease? I can find out certain things, but until I try it, I won't even know if I like the way it makes me feel. Even then, I may be unaware if it is a "good idea" because of potential long term effects which I can't assess.

Like scott said, the FDA does not approve of most supplements because it cannot afford to do the research and have the enormous beauracracy to evaluate the claims made for each chemical that people ingest.

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"I am a babe here.

I suppose I'll just have to take your word on that one... Don't know how it's relevant, unless you mean that you're younger and recognize there's a certain wisdom attained over time that you haven't quite grasped yet. If that's the case, congratulations, that's the first step.


I eat a balance diet as I know one from my experience and from reading, but of course critically of healthy diet.

Come again? I gather you're just trying to say that you eat a balanced diet. Balanced according to whom?


I abstain completely from so-called diet supplements, but I have some friends who take diet supplements religiously.

So many things constitute 'supplements'. Could you be more specific? Are we talking ephedra type stimulants and what not?

I tell these friends to concentrate on balanced diet, developing a good psyche, and to engage in physical activities, which should save them a lot from the pocketbook, and give a good break to their liver, kidneys, and bladder, and other systems and assorted organs in their physiology.

You had me up to the liver part. Without looking at their regimen I would have to interject some caution here. Almost everything is a 'toxin' to the liver, in that it has to deal with almost anything. Even the salad we eat can contain pesticides, or parasites in the event there is no pesticides. Also, there are many supplements that will make your liver outperform a person who is not using said supplement, because you are providing nutrients to it in doses that you can't get from the foods we eat today. With high yield crops and animal farms all of our nutrition experience is being slighted because what we once thought to be nutritious is really just water and cellulose because of poor soil conditions and crossbreeding. This isn't fantastical sci-fi talk here, it's the modern agricultural world at work where the dollar is the bottom line.


And are they essentially what the FDA would approve as food supplements?
I could hardly give a f$#@ what the FDA has to say. They are just that, a federal organization in place to keep the status quo. Sure they serve well in some instances where uninformed idiots take high doses of vitamin E, or where some people think the food pyramid starts with beer and pizza, but beyond that they are a tool of the pharmaceutical industry, their well intentioned efforts being lost years ago with the film strips of little joey eating corn and smiling because he just got a vegetable serving.

The end product to make you guys live happier lives and longer lives?

Sure....


If you have to give me a slap, do it on my wrist; because I am exercising my natural right to ask questions of people engaged in what I might consider exotic intake of chemicals, all in the name of achieving knowledge and maybe wisdom."

My ideas of...


From my stock knowledge as a man in the street:

For me a balanced diet is one that is not excessive in volume. So I don't eat too much of anything and too much or too often of meals or snacks.

Then also I don't take too much sweet and too much greasy foodstuffs.

Also I eat food matters representing meats, fish and sea foods, vegetables and fruits, eggs and milk.

Then I tell my wife to avoid processed foods and drinks as much as possible or convenient; but she being also busy with her job and the kids has to use ready to cook or warmed up foods from the supermarket, every so often; and I still love her for it.

If I have my way, I would rather eat when I am hungry; but my wife insists on eating meals at fixed times, because she can't be doing a food catering service at my beck and call, even though I can prepare a meal myself and for myself. So for the sake of domestic peace and functional common life, I eat when she says it's time to eat, and I still love her.

About food supplements, what I know is that they come in plastic bottles or containers and are marked as food supplements but described as loaded with a lot of benefits like making you sleep better, keep you alert in your office work, help you in your social life, and also solve common problems like constipation or the opposite LBM, give you more zest and pep when you get up in the morning, improve your facial complexion... Pharmaceutically produced vitamins are also food supplements, yes?

I have a neighbor who doesn't drink, I don't either unless it's offered to me and I can't decline for courtesy (hehehehe), but he has a collection of such containers sporting the label 'food supplements'. One container is huge, it must be capable of holding more than two gallons of water. What's inside? The name outside is WHEY in big letters.

Well, I hope my ideas of a balanced diet and also food supplements are correct, so that I am into a healthy nutrition routine on the one hand, and on the other I save funds otherwise spent on unnecessary food supplements.

By the way, how much is too much? Enjoying good food is not eating a lot of it, I mean for me I don't have to eat much to enjoy food. Much and too much for me consists in an automatic assessment of quantity as I eat, depending upon my need and my hunger. Maybe a practical guide which I think is sensible and nutrition-wise valid, is when you are a parent after the health of your children and you tell them that they have enough already of something, then you apply the measure of enough to yourself, that I think is a good criterion for my measure of what is enough or how not to eat much and certainly not too much.


About Nootropics, please don't get me wrong. I might have to use Nootropics, the ones which are already established to be life enhancing or shall we say 'restorative', when I get to be in my senior years, just like I am now using glasses to help me see better because I have been nearsighted since after my high school years.

Susma

Susma,

It seems like you have some very strong ideas about supplements and are looking for us to agree that you are correct:

"I save funds otherwise spent on unnecessary food supplements."

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I believe most of us here do not agree with your position. If you wish to know what we believe....perhaps I'll just speak for me....what I believe it is that supplements are not a waste of money, are not toxic and are very helpful to my health. If you do not believe me you can check references on supplements:

here:
http://www.pdrhealth...ugs/index.shtml

or here:
http://www.memorialh...macist-Consumer

or here:
http://qualitycounts.com/anti.html

If you post exactly what you eat and drink and how much we can give you some feedback on your diet.

Praise God, I am healthy.


I have been reading now and then that the latest finding about sickness is that a lot of it depends on genes.

If one is not physically hurt from accidents or from lethal assaults, then genes determine how sickly or unhealthy and how soon you will be, on the catalyzing contributions from one's own constitution getting enfeebled or from viruses and bacteria and yes, from poor or wrong diet and living conditions, and naturally from over-exhaustion or indulgence of one's emotional and physical resources.

I mean,everything else being equal, a guy with better genes will be more immune to sicknesses than a guy with less gifted genes.


As I said, I eat a regular balanced diet as I explained in the post above, and I don't take food supplements and not pharmaceutically prepared vitamins.

Without food supplements, by luck or by God's goodness or by evolution or by my nature, which all come down to genes, I am rather healthy, always up and about, rarely sick, and certainly not the kind that requires staying in bed.

Maybe when I get to be in my later senior years, who can say? I might have to consume regular food supplements; but I don't think so -- because there have been and are humans who survive healthily to very old years without food supplements or pharmaceutical vitamins, just on living a normally safe and healthy lifestyle as history has taught mankind about such a lifestyle.

Of course, if these humans have access to food supplements and vitamins in their old old years they might live even longer and more comfortably.

Susma

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"As I said, I eat a regular balanced diet as I explained in the post above"

Susma,

If you wished our opinion you could type e.g. for b'fast I ate 1/2 cup oatmeal, 3 poached eggs, for lunch I ate a salad with tomatos, carrots, 1 can tuna and french dressing, etc.

But it does not look like you really wish our opinion.

Be well.