#397 Supplements That Lower Inflammation, My Optimal Diet - Q&A

Siim Land (0:00)

All right, first question, what are your top supplements for reducing inflammation markers? So inflammation, it is considered one of the main root causes of, you know, virtually all chronic diseases, including aging itself. Like there's the term called inflammation, which refers to the age associated increase in inflammation in the body. So, you know, not all inflammation is bad. You do benefit from some amounts of inflammation, especially when we're talking about fighting infections, like a fever. You also need inflammation for muscle hypertrophy. So the, you know, swell, cell swelling response is an inflammatory response. And if you shut down or blunt that inflammatory response with cold exposure or too many anti-inflammatory supplements after resistance training, then you also blunt some of the beneficial adaptations, these adaptations from exercise. So not all information is bad. The problem is that, you know, the amount of inflammation is what's bad. So in the modern world, or if you have certain, let's say comorbidities or chronic diseases, then you might experience too much inflammation, chronic inflammation, which is one of the main hallmarks of aging as well. Chronic inflammation, which contributes to inflammation age-associated, increase in inflammation, and the subsequent increase in the chronic diseases as well. So, you know, generally the healthy lifestyle is going to reduce your inflammation as well, getting enough sleep, eating like a proper diet, not overeating calories, like any food in excess can cause inflammation. So it comes down to like just energy balance and maintaining optimal body weight. But in the question of what are the certain supplements, then there are quite a wide variety of supplements that can have beneficial effects on inflammation, such as glycine and NEC. They increase glutathione, which has anti-inflammatory properties. I've talked a lot about that on the channel as well. In certain situations, magnesium can have anti-inflammatory effects. Then there's things like vitamin C, vitamin E, those are antioxidants. Astaxanthin has anti-inflammatory properties, even like ginger and stuff like quercetin, physetin, epigenin, they generally have some anti-inflammatory properties. Is the effect size very big from something like quercetin or physetin? I don't think so. There's not a lot of studies looking at that, but I think the most powerful and most bang for your buck in terms of the anti-inflammatory effects are omega-3 supplements and melatonin, glycine and NAC, and curcumin. So I think those would be the top five legitimate anti-oxidants or anti-inflammatory supplements that I would consider. Vitamin C, yes, it has certain anti-inflammatory properties, but it's not as powerful as something like melatonin, for example. So taking omega-3s every day is a good idea to increase your omega-3 index, which is associated with reduced risk of heart disease and mortality and Alzheimer's even. So that's a good idea to just keep in your routine on a daily basis. Second of a melatonin, every once in a while, micro-reducing melatonin is also good for not only the sleep properties, but also the anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant properties. So melatonin, in my opinion, is like a very powerful longevity hormone. And with age, you see a decrease in melatonin levels.

Then second of all, glycine and NAC, as well, I've talked many times. Glycine is a staple in my daily diet, and NAC is something I take on and off, not every day. You don't want to take NAC after a workout, because it can blunt some of the positive adaptations. Same with curcumin, and same with some other anti-inflammatory supplements. You don't want to take those after a workout, but you can take things like omega-3s, melatonin before bed. Omega-3s you can take before meals, for example, to increase the absorption. And curcumin is better to take on the rest days or before a workout. Next question. Did you share yet to complete what to eat for optimal living? So I haven't like, yeah, really outlined in detail my what I think is the optimal diet for longevity, first and foremost.

And I think the answer depends a lot on the particular individual. And the reason I haven't done this video before is because I'm more of like an agnostic when it comes to diet and nutrition. I've done many different types of diets, and I've seen many people doing different diets and getting great results with that. And when you look at centenarians, the people who live over 100 years old, then those people also have a pretty wide range of different diets.

And there's also some like not healthy components in their diets. So a lot of the centenarians, they might eat ice cream, they might eat chocolate, they might eat some other, like some cookies or something like that. So the centenarians, again, they're not the perfect role model for regular people because the reason why most centenarians live to 100 years old is because of their genetics. Let's be honest about that. Like they smoke, they drink, those kinds of things. So they just have a very favorable genetic profile that protects them against those kinds of unhealthier lifestyle habits. So I think that the diet, the reason why we want to focus on the diet in the first place is because a particular diet is going to help you to achieve a particular biomarker profile. So it has to include, because the biomarkers at the end of the day are what matter more than the diet.