n=1

This post is part of my n=1 series where I outline all the self-experimentation I've done over the decades. What worked and what didn't. These posts are special because they're more like continually updated articles. It's unlikely I will make new posts to notify you of when I've updated these articles, so keep in mind that they might change in the future.

Intro

Supplements. The lifeblood of podcasters. Scams, hype and bullshit. This is my journey into what works and what doesn't. I'm going to continually keep this post updated as I try, and inevitably reject, supplements, technology and other woo-woo in order to improve my life. Let me make this clear at the get go; I'm willing to try just about anything, but if one thing is very clear it's that the placebo effect doesn't work on me. I've rejected supplements that people I trust entirely claim work great for them. I believe this is due to two factors. 1. My initial assumption is always that a supplement will not work. If someone either owns a stake in a substance or has an affiliate code it just about immediately disqualifies it from me even wasting the time to test it. 2. Genetic variability. Just because something works for you due to your genetic make-up doesn't mean it'll work for me (and vice versa). Everything in this post is listed in order of significance. The items at the top are more important than the items at the bottom of each section, sometimes dramatically so.

Todo

Be aware that this post is nowhere near complete. I also need to dig through my bookmarks to get all the links to the studies that convinced me to try these (sometimes nutty) things. It will continually grow over time.

✅ - What worked

Out of the hundreds of supplements, weird physical and mental techniques as well as technology.. this is the short list of things that actually worked.

🔋 - Energy

With energy I'm referring to the desire, drive and ability to perform what I want to perform each day.

Lifting weights

I lift weights using a very strenuous rest-pause system 5 days a week, monday-friday. Besides energizing me it wears me out to the point where it's much easier to fall asleep, which in turn results in more energy the next day.

Iodine - DAILY - 2.5mg

It is amusing how "established science" varies depending on geographical location. We in the west have "established" that we'll get hypothyroidism if we consume more than 0.2mg idoine per day. A scientist from japan I happened to play chess with laughs outright when he hears it. The japanese average 12-15mg per day. It highlights how ephemeral "mainstream science" actually is. I take a single drop of 2.5mg lugol's solution per day. It has completely solved a 3 decade long condition of having ice cold hands and feet. Along with that there's a general sense of well-being and elevated energy levels that comes with it.

Daily walk

Nothing serious. Just 10-20 minutes a day of sun exposure and letting my eyes focus on something further away than the nearest wall or monitor screen. It also greatly improves my mood.

Green tea

This is a weird one. When I cut out most, sometimes all, of my coffee I switched to green tea. Oddly I noticed a distinct increase in energy despite the smaller amount of caffeine. I recently found out this is likely because green tea contains ellagitannins which is a precursor for urolithin-a and hippuric acid. This is directly correlated with improved ability to burn fat for energy which is likely what I noticed.

Fermented dairy

Yoghurt, kefir, etc. Contains hippuric acid, same notion as green tea.

Chromium - 50ug

There's a lack of it in my diet, so I take it to make sure. Never noticed anything but it's supposed to help with processing carbohydrates and blood sugar control. Being on a ketogenic diet might render it mostly useless.

💪 - Muscle performance

This category is about improving weight lifting and/or aerobic performance.

Caffeine - 1mug

It works. Just don't go overboard. You're not giving yourself energy, you're just borrowing it from six hours in the future.

Boron - 3mg

I've tried everything from 3 to 18mg per day but the minimum dose of 3mg was just as effective so I just stayed there. It raised my free testosterone by roughly 33% by reducing SHBG. This is most likely a defiency in my diet and it might do nothing for you.

Paraben avoidance

There's never a good reason to accept parabens. There's several shampoos that avoid them. For a long time I used a coconut oil + corn starch + sodium bicarbonate mix as a deodorant. I know, it sounds nuts, but it's far more effective than any anti-perspirant you've tried. The issue is that it stains shirts and I found no way to fix that. So I've reverted to alcohol mixes to kill the bacteria that causes the smell. This is harsh on the skin and requires re-applying several times a day but doesn't stain clothing.

Creatine - 3-5g

Tons of studies on it. Supposed to work. I've never noticed it helping or doing anything. It also builds up to the point where I start getting nighttime urination, whereupon I have to cycle off it for a week or so. I just keep taking it because that many studies can't be wrong, can they?

Beta-alanine - DAILY - 4-5g

There's a lack of carnosine in my vegetarian diet so I take beta-alanine, which is a precursor for carnosine, to make up for it. Never noticed anything but it's supposed to help with exercise performance much like creatine.

🗲 - Recovery

I lift weights. I do it in an exceedingly difficult way utilizing rest-pause for a daily 30 sets each hitting complete muscle failure. Five times a week. It's rough. I need to recover. This is what I use.

Massage gun

This has been a life saver for my shoulder and lower back. I could have even listed it under the sleep category since it's improved my sleep so much. Used to have massive issues falling asleep after doing any exercise that hit my lower back, 10 minutes with this thing and I'm just dandy.

Methylsulfonylmethane - DAILY - 2g

Supposedly a deficiency of this in my diet so I take it just in case. It's supposed to help with muscle pain, inflammation in joints, etc and there's some studies on the topic. I believe it helps since I'm generally more achy-ouchy after heavy lifting without it. But it's minor and compared to the massage gun it's barely worth mentioning.

Molybdenum - DAILY - 400% rda

It's a mineral that's very difficult to have a deficiency of since it exists in tons of varied things. But if you look at my diet there's a distinct lack of it. So I take a drop every day to make sure. That said it's supposed to help with breaking down protein, never noticed it doing anything.

🛑 - Cancer prevention

It is pure hubris to list these under the "what worked" category. But so far I do not have cancer. When I get it they'll all be moved to the "didn't work" category.

Ketosis

If there's a single thing you can do to maximize your chances of surviving cancer or avoiding it all together it would be ketosis. Your body is continually in a fasting mimicing state yielding many (but not all) of the benefits of water fasting.

Fasting

I water fast most saturdays. This is specifically to allow my body to clear out cancerous cells since I have no interest in losing weight. If I'm unable to fast, perhaps due to a particularly hard workout week, I do fat fasts. During these I eat fat but no protein. This invokes exactly the same "feeling" as water fasting does in me, but greatly suppresses detrimental effects. To clear out cancer cells you need to starve it of protein after all, not fat. Additionally once per year I do a one week water fast.

Carbohydrate avoidance

Glucose is the primay source of energy for cancer. Reduce it as much as possible to starve it.

Glutamin avoidance

Cancer cells ferment glutamin, and to a lesser extend glutamate, for energy. Along with glucose this is their main source of energy. Starve them all.

🧠 - Cognition

Being a programmer and business owner you might argue this is by far the most important category.

Migraine prevention

I get migraines with aura. Have been all my life. Switching to a ketogenic diet reduced it from 3-4 times a week to once a month, but I do still get them occasionally. High dose niacin (vitamin b3) in the range of 100-200mg taken when the aura is visible but before the migraine kicks in can entirely prevent the migraine phase. It's important that you use the flush version of b3 (nicotinic acid) and not the no-flush (nicotinamide / niacinamide).

Caffeine - many mugs

Besides nicotine caffeine has the most noticeable effect on my cognition. I stick to 3 mugs of coffee and 3 mugs of green tea these days. I've had periods where I abused it drinking upwards of 2 liters of coffee a day. I felt dead tired for most of the days so it obviously wasn't worth it.

Red light filter - 4000k

I don't wear the glasses, it seems silly. But I do have one activated on my computer screens, it prevents eye-strain which can lead to headaches and dry eyes. We've also exclusively got remote controlled lights so I reduce the blue light spectrum in favor of warmer reddish on all lights in the apartment around noon and onwards.

Omega-3 - 1.2g

I use algae oil since that's what actually produces the omega-3 fatty acids. I'm not sure why people are so obsessed with having it go through a fish first. I also stick to the proven effective dosage of more than 0.6g epa+dha. I've never noticed any anti-inflammatory effects, joint improvements or anything along those lines even with massive doses (the largest I took was 20g fish oil per day for a month straight, zero difference).

Taurine - 3g

I really don't notice anything with taurine but there's study after study proclaiming its benefits. I take it mainly since my vegetarian diet has a deficit in taurine and I don't feel like risking it.

♂ - Libido

The two main factors are my fat intake and the amount of calories I eat. Every other measure outlined below is far, FAR below those two. If you haven't gotten those in check the rest are completely irrelevant.

Fat

Out of all the macro nutrients fat is the single largest determining factor for my libido. If any other macro nutrient at any point exceed my fat intake calorie for calorie my libido plummets. My lipid profile is 100g saturated, 70g mono-unsaturated, 30g poly-unsaturated.

Calories

Staying around maintenance caloric intake is crucial for a healthy libido but assuming my fat intake is high enough I can be in a caloric deficit without too big of a hit to my libido.

Omega-6 - >= 17g

You need o6 fatty acids, they're essential since your body cannot create them. It doesn't matter what you've heard. A poignant example is linolenic acid which is turned into dihomo-γ-linolenic acid, which is turned into gamma linolenic acid, which is turned into prostaglandin e1, which is a driver of healthy erections. You don't have to fear o6, just make sure you get sufficient quantities of omega-3 to compensate.

Carbohydrates

I need a minimum of 50g of net carbs per day. Lower than that and I feel low. I believe this is due to gluconeogenesis activating turning glucogenic amino-acids into glucose which is quite hard on the body. Thus I intentionally eat at least that many to avoid GNG.

Light kegels

Yes, if you have a dysfunctional pelvic floors then kegels can greatly help tighten it up. But it seems like people are doing it so vigorously that they're giving themselves muscle imbalances down there. I'm talking light contractions for no more than a second or two, can be done at any point during the day for any length of time. Just to perk your prostate up. If you're not sure why you'd want to do that then look into just how crucial your prostate is for your libido and function.

Sunflower lecithin - 5g

Inflates your prostate with prostatic fluid. I believe soy lecithin would work just as well. It's also a very tasty source of choline.

Boron - 3mg

I've tried everything from 3 to 18mg per day but the minimum dose of 3mg was just as effective so I just stayed there. It raised my free testosterone by roughly 33% by reducing SHBG. This is most likely a defiency in my diet and it might do nothing for you.

Zinc - 25-50mg

There's a lack of zinc in my vegetarian diet since I don't eat eggs particularly often, thus I always supplement 25mg a day. Occasionally I will bump this up to 50mg to counteract the vast quantities of copper I consume from the piping here in sweden.

Maca - 3-5g

Black is specifically called out but I've tried blends which also work. It creates a sort of itch which is pleasant and more of a motivator than a physical drive. You'll want to cycle off it, I skip it during weekends.

Stevia - 5 drops

Stevia is a vasodilator. I mostly drink it since I enjoy the flavor and its the only sweetner I allow myself.

🕗 - Refractory period

The reduction thereof. Dopamin specifically drastically reduces prolactin.

Mucuna pruriens - 3-10g

This is essential. Just be careful. The so called "velvet bean" contains pre-formed l-dopa. This is a precursor to and just one step away from full on dopamin. It will drastically reduce prolactin which is what you're after, but artificially raising dopamin is outright dangerous and can lead to death in high amounts (much higher than 10g). Although, I don't notice any real effects of cycling off MP like I do with other dopaminergic compounds. There might be something in the bean that balances it out. I would still cycle off it at least 2 days of a week, I tend to skip it during the weekend.

Vitamin e - 400ie

Studies confirmed that supplementing E cut prolactin to less than a third of where it started. And yes, this is noticeable. But supplementing can be tricky and expensive since you need the blend of tocopherols and not just the alpha version. Supplementing just the alpha variant is linked to several detriminetal effects, including cancer. Make sure you exceed your RDA of vitamin e through diet, then supplement with a complete supplement occasionally.

Vitamin b6 - 25mg

Use the p5p variant since apparently the time-release version can cause toxicity. It's documented to lower prolactin, that said I've noticed very little effect.

👄 - Mouth

I intend to have all of my teeth pulled within a couple of years to entirely eliminate the inevitable problems that set in when you hit old age. But this is a drastic move that most won't be willing to go through so you can take my protocol below as a permanent step.

Hydroxyapatite

This is the naturally occurring substance that actually re-mineralizes your teeth. As in the thing your body creates to repair them. If you can get toothpaste with both it and fluoride then it's a 2 for 1 punch but if you had to choose between them I'd go with this over fluoride.

Fluoride

This one confuses me. There's people I trust on both sides of the argument whether or not it re-mineralizes teeth. I've decided to keep using it despite it being a potent halide. Obviously I do not consume fluorated drinking water when I visit countries that do that madness. But for toothpaste, yes.

Mouthwash

If it contains alcohol or anything that kills bacteria, avoid it. The only exception to this is if you're resetting your mouth's microbiome after overgrowth of any kind. But then it needs to be done according to a protocol and you really should be using corsodyl not mouthwash.

Tongue scraping

Morning, after every meal, nightly. Far more important than brushing for oral scent. Just don't press too hard, you will damage your tongue if you do so.

Flossing

Use thread, not those little brushes you push through the gaps between the teeth. The thread is strong enough to actually scrape the debris and plaque from the teeth. The brushes just pushes the food out. You will want to be able to floss and have the thread not smell bad afterwards.

Oil pulling with xylitol

There's a lot of science showing that xylitol will kill the bacteria leading to plaque. It nukes their cell membranes causing death. Every night about an hour before brushing I mix a teaspoon of coconut oil, 2g of xylitol and 2 drops of tea tree oil with some water. Then I swish that for a few minutes.

😣 - Acne

I've found that absolutely nothing except for benzol peroxide works. Any- and everything I try make the acne worse. I've gotten to the point where I can go months with just an occasional acne spot here or there. But then my hormones inevitably go bonkers due to stress or whatever and I get fierce outbreaks with six or seven spots at once. I've learned to live with it. External stress like adapating to being in a country with much stronger sunlight than sweden also generate outbreaks for the first week or two.

Benzol peroxide

I apply a light coating of 5% cream all over my face and let it dry before going to bed. I do not wash it off until the next morning. Without this I inevitably get acne, and many times the cystic variety.

Just water

Always heard water dries out the skin and you need moisturizers etc etc. No, just water leaves the layer of oil your skin naturally produces eliminating the need for moisturizers. I wash my face four or five times a day along with a shower after lifting weights.

Mechanical cleaning

I use a rough wash cloth to grind my skin before bed and before I apply the benzol peroxide. This removes dead skin cells, helping with clogged pores.

Hormonal health

Stay calm. Stick to your routine. They say variation is the food of the soul, yet it also seems to be a buffet for acne bacteria.

💤 - Sleep

You've heard of the 80-20 rule where you get 80% of the result from 20% of the time invested. That's sleep. If you get sleep done you're 80% of the way there. Unfortunately it's bloody difficult to get good sleep in the modern day.

Sufficient fat

As previously mentioned I require around 200g of fat a day. If I fail to consume this sleep onset latency will hit and my body will continually wake me up during the night to get me to go eat something. High protein or carbohydrates do not work, they will help me fall asleep but I'll inevitably wake up and won't be able to fall back asleep. Good thing is that assuming I get sufficient amount of fat I can be in a caloric deficit and still sleep perfectly fine.

Ketosis

I had insomnia for decades. Switching to a ketogenic diet and lifestyle and meeting my fat requirement, as outlined above, has been the largest gamechanger in my life. But be aware, if my diet is too protein heavy and not enough fat I won't be able to sleep even if my ketones are high.

Gel ear plugs

Any sound will disturb me. And I do mean anything, including my own breathing. As long as you only use these once they're perfectly comfortable and can be used indefinitely since they form along your ear canal.

Black out curtains

This is non-negotiable. Total game changer for falling asleep.

Regularity

I got to bed within 30 minutes of the same time every single night. No exceptions. Monday through sunday.

12k lumen morning light

I use it for 15 minutes, twice. Once with each morning mug of coffee. It REALLY perks you up.

Cold showers

Please don't confuse this with ice baths, cold plunges or Wim Hof's cultish breathing practices. I just get in the shower, turn it to the coldest setting and let it hit my chest for 30 seconds or so. It perks me up more and for longer than a cup of coffee. Only used as necessary but it's immediately effective and greatly helps cognition for an hour or so afterwards.

Melatonin - 700ug

I've heard about the detrimental effects of long term melatonin usage. I've never noticed a thing. They further help me reduce sleep onset latency.

Rooibos

A mug is supposed to help reduce cortisol. Have to admit I haven't noticed anything but it helps me relax during the evening. Found a nice blend of rooibos and hibiscus.

Magnesium bisglycinate - 125mg

I don't need a lot but along with melatonin it seems to help with latency.

❌ - What didn't work

!TODO - There's literally hundreds of things I need to add to this section.

Vitamin b6

Supposed to reduce refractory period by reducing prolactin. Not noticeable.

Spirulina + chlorella

I'm hesitant to call bullshit on these since NASA is investing in them. But I noticed absolutely zero when I used them. Nada. I tried them specifically for their supposed effect on mitochondrial energy production. High dose, low dose, for weeks. Nothing.

Folate - 100ug

Heard a lot of talk about folate, as opposed to folic acid. Took both the regular form and the pre-methylated. Never noticed anything.

Vitamin C - 250mg

So many talk about the benefits of C. I've never noticed a darn thing. Tried everything from a daily 250mg dose for a year up to mega-dosing it with 5g per day. Nothing.

Vitamin b7 (biotin) - 250ug

Noticeable increase in energy when diet is deficient, otherwise nothing.

Vitamin b1 (thiamine) - 25mg

Noticeable increase in energy when diet is deficient, otherwise nothing.

Theanine

Supposed to help with sleep. Never noticed a darn thing. Might be because I already drink green tea on a daily basis.

CoQ10

Praised for its effect on mitochondria, in turn increasing energy. Never noticed anything at all.