My Personal Supplement Regimen
Supplementation can have a drastic effect on your health. It can help with nutrient deficiency, prevent chronic disease and support the body’s many systems. The hardest part about beginning any supplementation regimen is starting and planning ahead. The average individual probably doesn’t need to take 80 pills a day, but there are a few supplements that may prove to be helpful regardless of age, fitness level or lifestyle.
On this week’s episode we speak with Ed about his personal supplementation regimen and the calculated approach he takes towards optimal health. We talk about the CORE 5 supplements, a great starting point for anyone curious about supplementation, and all the areas supplementation can be beneficial in your own life.
Some Topics We Discussed:
How does Ed divide up his supplements so he knows what to take at what time? (1:19)
What is the purpose of supplementation? (3:33)
What are some of the major reasons people age poorly? (11:08)
What does Ed personally take for his supplements? (17:31)
Key Takeaways From This Episode:
Ed supplements to improve his quality of life, not necessarily to have a longer life. (6:17)
Aging is accelerated right now quicker than any time in the history of mankind. (8:37)
Chronic inflammation and rising, unstable insulin and blood sugar are the two biggest factors that cause poor health. (11:12)
Products + Resources:
Tripping Over The Truth by Travis Christofferson
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
Brian Strickland 00:43 Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of the Holistic Navigator Podcast where we believe in the body's ability to heal itself. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm Brian Strickland, the producer of the show and today we're going to be talking about supplementation. We'll cover some of the basics of supplementation and the purpose it serves. Plus Ed will be sharing his personal supplement regimen, which is somewhere in the ballpark of nearly 70 pills a day. Let's say hello, really quick to your host, Mr. Ed Jones. Ed, what's up? How are you doing today?
Ed Jones 01:19 Good afternoon, Brian, I'm doing quite well. And I am excited to share today one of the more common questions which I rarely ever answer in person, which is what do you take Ed, as far as supplements? But I don't really have a you know, I can't just spill off mentally Oh, here's the 72 supplements I take because I actually have to take pictures of them to remember it myself. Now I will say this is how I arrange it. Before I get into the reasons why I do it. And the exact products that I use. I do my pills one week at a time. I will spend usually Sunday evening with little baggies, and I will line up all of my supplements and then I will make up the baggies for that week. That's the first thing. Secondly, I do believe in taking it in divided doses. Whenever blood levels you achieve within two hours of a supplement, unless there are oil soluble, you probably will be completely depleted within eight hours. So it makes total sense to take most of your supplements, morning and supper or if you felt they were affecting your sleep, do it morning and lunch. And so I carry these baggies around very easily. I've been doing this for decades, many decades.
Brian Strickland 02:39 I think it's important to say that this is one of those things that you have to be really intentional about just like most things, you know, that are health related planning, I mean, you have to do it. That's its purpose, just like meal preps or anything like that if you're wanting to eat healthy. And so actually planning out when you have that many. And then being sure that you take them with you is really important.
Ed Jones 03:01 It's not going to happen on its own. And you're exactly right. In fact, you've just discussed how you're organizing your email life. In this complex world of ours, we you will be eaten alive with all of these handcuffs of technology and life and chaos if you don't put it in order. And that's one of those is, you know, thinking about what you're going to eat during the day too. But the supplements are huge as far as having that organized. If you think you're going to get up every morning and get your little bottles out. Generally that won't happen consistently.
Brian Strickland 03:33 Let's go ahead and dive into the purpose of supplementation. Now I think it may be somewhat obvious to people but for you personally, why is it that you take that many supplements?
Ed Jones 03:46 Well, first off, you know, most things that have ever been written, spoken or taught, and especially in medical school, we're looking at nutrients to overcome deficiency diseases. That is the minimal part of why I supplement because we really don't have people walking around with scurvy and rickets and all the old diseases that were created by gross deficiencies. Now, I do believe we have subclinical deficiencies, but we don't have those ones that are devastating the physical and mental parts of our bodies. So I think we can definitely eat super healthy foods consistently and not be deficient in almost anything that's really the smallest part of why I supplement. In fact, if you wanted to just take one or two supplements, you could probably feel very secure that you're not going to be deficient. Here's the reason why most people, even people 30 plus would may want to consider the heavier duty therapeutic supplement pro protocol like I do. And before I even say that no one has to take 72 pills. So don't think that I'm putting this out there like the goal. We actually talked and before I get into specifics of it a Sunday called the core five. I've learned over 40 years, if you just will do these five things, you don't really have to, unless you're on my plane of thinking, you don't have to embrace anything other than this, the core five is a great multivitamin, not the big box Centrum multivitamin made from food, omega three, definitely one it's been tested to not have heavy metals, probiotics, that is, we've done a several of our comments throughout all of our episodes tend to go back to the gut health. And as part of this. A green drink. Green drinks are not something like just kale, it's actually an organic, multiple mixture of these different greens to help in many, many areas that I really don't have time to discuss right now. But it's imperative. And then lastly is vitamin D, most people need 5000 units, if you only did that, you're looking at one drink and five pills, and you would be far better off than 99% of the population. So if you are beginner, you don't want to get too much into this. Find someone who can help you with this core five list.
Brian Strickland 06:11 And that's that's really a great starting point, unless you're really wanting to target something specific. Right?
Ed Jones 06:17 Well, unless you really are embracing what we call, you know, aging gracefully, and you know, the maybe the empowering yourself to the very highest level. And my goal is not to live a lot of extra years because I truly think that somehow we are modestly programmed that regardless of what we do, you're not going to add extensive years to kind of the machine. And I do know we can take away two significant years, but I'm not sure if we can add to them. What we all want or most people want is quality. We don't want to be the average 62 year old who is hobbling around with aches and pains and, you know depressed and not enough energy, all that with medications are having to be taking from their doctor. And that's the goal of me is to not be in that place. So it's not about deficiencies. That's not why a person like me would do 72 pills. What it is about is a new disease that I just created and named called FTD. I know some of the younger people will not remember this. But FTD was always the florist that you went to when you were younger or now and even online. You can order flowers. Well, it's not the flowers. FTD stands for father time disease. And you know what people think aging is normal. It's now been coded through the World Health Organization, that aging is a disease. Now we all are going to get older, there is no fountain of youth. But what there is when we look at cultures around the world, who truly are living in the environments that our physical chemistry was more aligned with, is that the aging doesn't happen really significantly until they hit about 70 to 80. Guess what? Look around at Walmart right now at the 50 year olds hobbling and pale colors and terrible complexions and hair, this all fallen out. No, we have turned the hands of the clock the wrong direction by three decades. It can stop if you do the right things. And supplements is not the whole piece of the puzzle. today. That's all we're talking about. So what we're wanting to do is figure out if you know if anyone hearing this, this makes sense to that aging is accelerated right now quicker than any time in the history of mankind. I mean, it's normal to age, but it's not normal to age at an excessive rate. And I'm not going to get into it with any biochemistry or anything super technical. But there's a part of your cell called the mitochondria. The mitochondria is the engine within each cell that takes your food, your nutrients and turns it into ATP, which is gasoline, similar to gasoline for your engine in your car. That's what burns and produces horsepower. Well, that's the same thing in you. And the average ninety year old has lost 96% of his mitochondrial function. And as you age, you're going to lose more and more. And if you don't do things correctly, you're going to lose it quicker. Now, imagine that you have an airplane that has 100 cylinders on it. And when you're 15 years old, that airplane is fine with all 100 cylinders, operating very efficiently. Well, by age 30, you've gone down to about 85 and by 50, you're at about 65 well, it starts going a lot faster after age 50. You have a difficult time restarting those cylinders if you wait too long, but we can do it and preserve it far better than we can fix it. So that's what this whole protocol is about is slowing the aging process down. If you want to read a book, that's absolutely the best explanation for mitochondria and what it does to devastate our health, including increasing cancer rates significantly, it is called Tripping over the Truth. In fact, I just talked to Dr. Mercola, two podcasts ago, we both agreed it was one of the best books ever written on this subject. You know, I fly smaller planes. And I go past this, what I call the airplane graveyard, which I did yesterday morning, when I flew. These airplanes, there's a certain number that sit out on the ramp, and they simply don't fly because of whatever reasons. Remember this, everyone, very few of us wear out, we rust out. And when I say we rust out, it truly is like the rust on these airplanes. And it is difficult to fix rust, many times the airplane has to be thrown in the junkyard and or sulfur pieces you can fix were worn out parts, you cannot fix the terrible damage that occurs with rust.
Brian Strickland 11:08 So what are some of the major contributors to your rust in the body?
Ed Jones 11:12 That's a great question. Two of the biggest factors is chronic inflammation. And secondly, is the combination of rising and unstable insulin and blood sugar. Those two are what cause more and more of this rusting within us. Now, that isn't all of the parts to the puzzle of aging. And in fact, I came up with an acronym that I think fully addresses the whole system of declining health as far as father time and aging. And if you think of a tomb, we don't want to really be in a tomb, we want to live a long time. So the acronym is TOMBLESS. So here we go real quickly, t- toxins. We have to lead a relatively clean life. But the biggest part of toxins is opening the body's ability to discard them. When you ride behind a diesel bus and you breathe those fumes, something has to happen within you or those fumes in a toxic way will reside in your fatty cells and poison you. How do we do that supplements is not going to happen with your food people. Secondly, the O of tombless we must optimize the insulin. Insulins job is multifaceted one is to store food for later. That's why people with high insulin can't lose weight. Secondly, it creates damage to the cells we want and desire. And we need insulin levels to be at three or below. Third M the microbiome. You know, we all seem to probably know that word now which means that is the bacteria that resides in the gut lining. It is not easy to put it in nor keep it in. One reason is glyphosate which is sprayed on all foods. glyphosate is roundup and is truly an antibiotic. Fourth, B blood flow. You know, it doesn't really matter if your car is brand new, if there is some blockage in the fuel line, it's not going to run. And that's exactly the same of whether you take your supplements and eat healthy food. If there's some decreasing blood flow to certain organs or body parts, the good stuff won't get to the cells and that means that you will be compromised. L is lower your inflammation. Inflammation is at the root of all chronic diseases. When I say all I mean, we're almost 100% of everything you don't want to get as far as aging is based in chronic inflammation, the arthritis, the memory loss, the aches and pains, the plaque in your arteries, the wrinkles in your skin. All of this.
Brian Strickland 14:08 And there's plenty of evidence to support that now.
Ed Jones 14:11 Exactly right Brian because 10 years ago, we were laughed at for saying that inflammation is at the root of this, but really Alzheimer's, just the brain on fire and so many other things. So the supplement protocol along with all of the other parts of the puzzle, but the supplement protocol is imperative because you're taking natural anti inflammatories, and that is a key part of slowing this process. E for exercise. We all know that if there's a fountain of youth ever to be found, it is in the area of exercise. Here's the catch though. Guess what happens when you exercise too much. You create more rest in the body unless you do the right supplement protocol. If you go to my podcast on exercise and fitness, you will hear me explain how to protect yourself from too how much exercise. Next is the last two s's one is supporting optimal cell function. Guess what people? The thing that makes your cells communicate, and has the valves that click on and off to put nutrients in. and discard waste out is the fatty layer that surrounds every single cell. Guess what that's made of? Fat. Guess what most people's made of in their body unhealthy fat, because this cell can only build what you eat. And if you're eating fats that have omega six and fried foods, and you're not taking omega three, you are have inferior cell walls and inferior cell walls mean, you're not going to communicate as well. It's not going to get rid of toxins, it's not going to shuttle the right nutrients within the cell. So support optimal cell function is critical. I've seen two people out of probably the last 2000 that I looked at optimal blood testing for omega threes that did it with food alone. They were eating one entire can of sardines per day. And they did do it without supplements. I don't want to rely on that. Lastly, here's a huge one, the last s of tombless is silence the genes. We are made of genetic material called genes. Those are blueprints that actually send information to make certain things happen. Well, guess what, we don't have the on button on most of our genes, a lot of them are silent until they need to become active for a short period to preserve something to protect us to activate. And then if you're ideally healthy, they will go back into silent mode. The problem is, in the world we live in with the chaotic toxic levels that we are introducing within ourselves, some of these genes get kicked on, and then they don't know where the off button is. And then stuff happens like more inflammation cells turn into unhealthy cells, which we know what that means. And then there's no stopping them. And then you wake up one day, and you get the call from the doc that we need to look further. your test results are questionable. And sometimes you can reverse it and sometimes you can.
Brian Strickland 17:31 Alright, so now that we've gone through the whole acronym, can you take us through maybe each letter and tell us what it is that you take personally for each of those?
Ed Jones 17:40 I can. I'm going to define generally what I take for each of the acronyms of tombless. Now, there will be a list at the end of that that really doesn't fit into any specific category. So I'll cover that at the end. However, first off, tombless. The first is toxins, we have to open our channels or else we will be self poisoning. I don't care how good of a life you lead. What are those things that I totally, absolutely have observed not only in myself, but in many people that work. One is Dr. Mercola, makes a wonderful liver support because the liver has a system called the P 450. That is the critical part of how we get rid of the things that are poisoning us. It has NAC and milk thistle twice a day, every day. Kyolic the only garlic that I truly know, is is friendly to my body. Many brands don't like me, it is odorless, and it has the bulk of clinical research that supports its use on an everyday basis. So I do that every day because of the fact that it does help reduce toxins again. Thirdly, lipo C. Any vitamin C will be helpful, you can buy the cheapest of the cheap that's the one of the few times you will hear me say that I don't care, you could go probably to Dollar General and get vitamin C and is still going to be beneficial. But don't do that with other nutrients. Lipo C is fat soluble. That means it stays longer, you're not urinating it out. I do use a product called calcium glucorate. Most people have never heard of that what that does, especially as a man ages, it allows some of the estrogens to be excreted. Estrogen as we get older is a demon to us over 50. You can have more body fat accumulation, less libido, it competes with testosterone, I do it twice a day. So that's the big bulk of the toxin. supplement protocol. Second to optimize insulin and again, if you listen to my other podcast, I generally have been on half of them. I'm talking about how we have to manage insulin, and I really suggest you get a blood test if your doctor is not willing or your nurse practitioner go to our product page and order and insulin tests from directlabs.com. The numbers on the reference ranges are inaccurate, people don't believe those if you want to age gracefully, you need to have it under three under three. So optimize insulin, I use berberine twice a day. It is an amazing or with tons of clinical research for helping to optimize your blood sugar and insulin, don't be confused. Glucose is not insulin significantly, they are kissing cousins. But that doesn't mean you can have healthy glucose and unhealthy insulin or vice versa. I use a product by Terry Naturally who I'd love his company, and is called. SuControl and it is an herb that helps to control and manage blood sugar levels, which again can fall back on helping insulin to
Brian Strickland 20:46 That's not berberine. Right?
Ed Jones 20:48 It's not berberine second ingredient. And it's an unusual herb, and I just do it morning and night. And then thirdly, omega threes, and that is critical to this managing of inflammation and blood sugar. The key to omega threes is this, you have to get a brand that has been fully tested to not have heavy metals. Secondly, you always try to add the on the back of the bottle, they will say two active ingredients EPA and DHA. You want 2000 milligrams when you add those together. Some brands, you can do that with two to three pills and other brands, you might have to do six to eight, I would certainly use the ones you have to do less pills. And if you ever burped them, it means that you need to find another brand. It doesn't mean it's terrible brand always. But sometimes the burping can indicate some rancidity going on. So I'm not real happy with brands that do that. Fourthly b- blood flow, and blood flow. You know many, and we're not talking about the diet here, which we talked about plenty, you have to have a healthy diet. Now don't think that I'm saying these pills will replace healthy eating, they won't. They're adding into this whole anti aging and slowing inflammation protocol. But when you get past 40 or 50, or 60, or 70, or 80, you're just simply, you know, the water hose laying in that front yard is kind of getting dried out and it's gotten gunk in it and it's just not flowing the way it used to. And we need to optimize that one of my go twos is natto kinase. Natto kinase is made from an ancient food called natto. It is remarkable is one of those nutrients under the radar screen, you rarely hear about it. But what it will do is if you take a dose of quality natto kinase and when I say quality, you have to know your stuff. Because there's some junky natto kinase going on, it will within two hours, create the optimal viscosity of your blood. That means if your blood is operating at too thick a level and you take natto kinase, then you're going to have optimal levels of viscosity. Now, if you are on blood thinners or really, if you have any medical conditions, and there are a significant of any level, you need to ask a educated health practitioner about interactions generally the only interactions that are of utmost concern are of those who are taking blood thinners that are pharmaceutical and if you are you would not want to do natto kinase. Now the other thing about natto is it will not super thin your blood likes the pharmaceuticals it will only bring you back to optimal which is pretty dang good. Lowering inflammation is the next one. Well, we all know that curcumin is the king of natural anti inflammatory herbs. And there are many brands out there only a few do I really believe in and the reason is this. In the country of India where they eat probably more curry than any group of people on this earth. They had their health issues, but one of those that they don't is with Alzheimer's, they have a lower rate. And one reason it is is because they eat so much of this curry. And they say when they do autopsies on people in India, their brain is actually yellow similar to the color of the herb itself. Well, the reason that happens is not because they eat it because we eat. There's people who eat a lot of it here and it's not working that way. Why is that? You have to cook this herb with fat. If it isn't processed with fat or some carrier, the body basically keeps it in the colon and excretes it and then you really get very little benefit. Well, there's a few supplement companies that are certainly on top of their game and they figured out how to do this. And so search for those and certainly we can help you down the road on making wise choices but just because it says curcumin or tumeric which is similar, same herbs but less concentrated, don't trust it. You need to be an informed consumer and in the tool last ones are the two s's stimulate the optimal cell function. Again, in cells, we have a, you know, a variety of components, the biggest one is mitochondrial. How do we support that, we support it through two different ingredients. One is called coenzyme q10, or ubiquinol is the basically same thing. This is what the mitochondria runs on. This is what it gets low with. As aging occurs. This is what is devastated by stat and drugs and sometimes other drugs. When that goes down, mitochondrial dysfunction goes way up. Last one is PQQ, it is the only nutrient that in my memory has been discovered in my lifetime. And it is something to really check into because it plays a role in their mitochondrial function, unlike anything else. And so the last one is silencing the genes. A lot of things play a role in active or silencing genes. But the biggest ones in my supplement protocol is there's a gene called mthfr that creates havoc, if it's too overexpressed, and we control it by the use of methyl folate in your B complex. Buy a b complex that has methylfolate don't buy one that has folic acid. Folic acid actually can do you harm, we do not recommend folic in anything including the multivitamin. Secondly, magnesium threonate is something that helps to control the genes within the brain for maintaining memory as we age. And then the next one is pomegranate. Believe it or not, pomegranate has an A good affinity for maintaining cell function. And then I'm going to end this because there are certain nutrients that I just can't fit into a category. And I'm gonna just read this off because I will probably continue this supplement protocol with slight tweaks over the years but this will be probably a consistent thing because it's worked for me, it's made my blood work optimal and made me functioning on the level that I want at almost 62. So the other things not mentioned is an herb called Amla. Amla when you look at the research an amla incredible how it keeps that cells that are unhealthy from spreading and it raises your good cholesterol and lowers the one that we don't want. Multivitamin. Gotta have a good one because nutrition is like an orchestra. And I don't want to just keep adding more bottles and a good multiple I do right now use a food grown multiple that I do twice a day. I do use cranberry with mannose extract twice a day to maintain my purity of less bacteria in the urinary track just because it seems to make me feel better. I do prostate support which is using the Saw Palmetto. I don't use a lot of that I only use one pill per day and it calls for to I just feel like it's best for me. And then the last thing is the Hawthorne Berry again, I really believe in for my heart. I use the product to make maintain my testosterone which is using several herbs tribulus being one of them that I'm a huge fan of. And then of course the probiotics, small amounts of iodine. I tend to agree with Dr. Mercola. I don't think we should be using 12 milligrams and above. I actually only use 1.5 milligrams every day. Massive believer in CBD doing it twice a day or as needed. There are days when I'm really overwhelmed and I want to calm down I do more of it. So doing CBD or not sleeping at night and again not sleeping I use GABA. I talked about that on the sleeping podcast. GABA is my lifesaver during the night. And then lastly, DHEA 20 milligrams in the morning. I need more testosterone. I probably have half of what you have Brian because I'm twice as old. So DHEA is the absolute best, safest way to do that without synthetic hormones. Dang, that covered a big list and I know I went way over. So slap me but I'm sorry we had to get it in.
Brian Strickland 29:17 Yeah, no worries at all.
Ed Jones 29:19 And we are going to post this list fully on The Holistic Navigator. So that does it for today's edition and thank you for listening. And again, my reminder Hippocrates, if a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing you harm. Have a healthy and safe day.
Brian Strickland 29:42 The information on this podcast and the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or any one of the medical profession and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The holistic navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of any purchaser or reader of these materials. The holistic navigator is not a doctor nor does he claim to be. Please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.