Scientific Diet Advice

Advice

• If you're obese, lose weight.
• Consume more ω-3, vitamin D, and zinc supplements.
• Consume less salt.
• If you're male, consider selenium supplements
• If you're trying to put on muscle, take creatine supplements
• If you're past middle-age, you should do a couple hours of cardio each week.

This advice comes from other pages on this site:

• Diet and Longevity Research
• How Much Cardio For Longevity
• Maximizing Muscle Growth

Cautions

Too much vitamin D Vitamin D, zinc Zinc, or selenium Selenium is toxic. Nutrition labels usually say what % of a nutrient's daily value (DV) the food or supplement provides. The FDA also provides tolerable upper intake levels (UL) which are the maximum daily intake unlikely to cause adverse health effects. For convenience, I've converted these ULs into percents of DVs. You should avoid taking more than this.

ω-3 consumption has no daily value defined by the FDA but they suggest not consuming more than 3g per day.

I couldn't find any recommended creatine doses, but there's no good reason to take more than 5g per day if maximizing strength is your goal.

Shilling

So, in terms of choosing a multi-vitamin, we want one with vitamin D, zinc, and selenium. Obviously, we want to avoid salt, but there is also evidence that vitamin E intake far in excess of USDA recommendations may cause increased mortality, so we want to avoid too much of that. There is some evidence that vitamin A, E, selenium, and zinc improve acne while iodine makes it worse. Finally, there is evidence B vitamins improve cognition.

I've done a decent amount of digging and the only multivitamin I could find that matches all these conditions is this one, so I currently use it.

Other Tidbits

• B vitamins improve cognitive abilities, but antioxidants and vitamin D do not Suh.
• "Omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins, and vitamin E supplementation did not affect cognition in non-demented middle-aged and older adults." Forbes