Test, Don't Guess: A Functional Medicine Guide to Supplements After 40

How do we know if we're on the thing? Oh, there we are. Okay. Um welcome to the MedMatrix podcast where one to two times a week we talk about all things functional medicine and how to take a more personalized preventative approach to your health. Uh quick disclaimer, this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not meant to be nor replace medical advice. If you are seeking medical help or attention, please refer to your physician and or your provider. If you are interested in us giving you medical advice, you can come You can become a patient through booking a discovery call on our website medmatrixusa.com. I'm Brian, the host of the podcast. I'm usually the one that signs all the bottom of your emails. And I'm here with the amazing Ms. Sophia Venere, who has a gift for making complex health topics make sense. Um Sophia, if you could just give me a brief intro of yourself. >> Yes, sure. Um so I'm Sophia uh Venere, a nurse practitioner. I have been a nurse practitioner for 20 years and for the past 5 years I've been involved in doing functional medicine. Really love what I do um and it's it's it's been a great journey and my passion since then. >> Mhm. So, today talking supplements. And supplements are everywhere right now. Magnesium, vitamin D, collagen, creatine, probiotics, those green powders that everyone seems to be doing when you're healthy, boosters, longevity stacks, all kinds of things. Um but not every supplement is necessary and not every trend is actually backed by science. And not every product off the shelf is of the highest quality. So, in this episode we're talking we're taking a functional medicine look at supplements for healthy aging. Um, [snorts] what people are commonly low in, like deficiencies. How some symptoms can connect back to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. And why normal labs are not always optimal. What conventional medicine can miss and why supplement quality, sourcing, dosing, personalization matter. So, I guess to kick it off, you know, when people hear supplements for healthy aging or supplements for anything, there could be like a million different things that come to mind. Some might be helpful. Some might be useless. Um, but I think a good question to just start off with is like, where as a just a regular person living in Maine, like where where do you even start? >> So, where do you start? Good question. Uh, before we start, before I start answering this question, I would like to go into definition of supplement and I'm going to read off my prepared notes. So, what are the supplements? Supplements are the products taken orally that are intended to add nutritional or other health value to the diet. It includes vitamins. It includes minerals. It includes protein powders, enzymes, probiotics, prebiotics, hormones, etc. With that said, you know, you take supplements to improve your overall health and we're talking about bone health, cardiovascular health, immunity, mental health. But you start with checking your levels. You start with seeing a functional medicine provider, checking your levels, seeing where you're deficient and where your deficiency is and and then uh you uh replete it based on your levels. >> Got it. All right, that all makes sense. And with that said, I mean, what are some of the most common supplements people over 40 are asking you about right now? >> So, the most common supplements are um vitamin D, magnesium, um omega fish oil, um sleep supplements for sleep, protein, amino acids, um I would say those are would be NAD, coenzyme Q10. I think those that the first come to mind, those are the supplements. >> Yeah, those um that's actually super interesting. Um I guess next question with that in mind would be why do you think so many people are supplementing without really knowing what they're low in? >> Why are people supplementing without knowing? Because uh it's a trend. You know, we're living in a social social media environment. We have uh information coming uh to us from everywhere, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and you know, there's supplements everywhere. You take this, you you become smarter. You take this, you become um I don't know, your immunity with boost your immunity. So, uh it's trending. Supplements are trending. Uh but again, it's very important to remember that you just don't want to take supplements just because someone on on TikTok told you, "Oh, it's a good supplement." You really want to um check your levels. We want to make sure that you're deficient in what you are supplementing. And therefore, you do need a provider, a functional medicine provider to um, check your levels and help you to find out your deficiencies. >> Yeah, definitely going to provider and getting some idea would certainly be helpful. Um, I know I know there's a like another question here, but I just got a quick one. If you'd indulge me, what are some like fun supplement trends that you've seen on, you know, TikTok or the internet, like but when you see them, you're like, "Wow, that is useless." I'm just curious for our listeners so they don't waste their money on the product. If you don't have any locked and loaded, we can come back to it, but um, there's so much out there. I didn't know if you had like you saw something recently that was just like, "Ugh." >> Uh, I would probably say calcium probably would be one that, um, you know, you patients or people have to be careful with, uh, you know, supplementing with calcium because calcium on its own can, you know, if you overtake calcium, can cause kidney stones, can create but you're at risk for, uh, you know, um, plaque formation, cardiovascular risk. So, you really have to be careful with, uh, taking calcium just on its own. Um, I've seen a lot of, uh, you know, probiotics being advertised, uh, which sometimes, you know, you also need to know what kind of probiotics you're taking, why you're taking probiotics. Probiotics are very unstable when we take them, so we have to make sure it's a right dose, it's a, um, it's it's it's a it's a quality supplement, which I think it's also very important, uh, when we are discussing supplements. >> Yeah, all All that makes sense. And it's actually super interesting because like you said I mean I do hear an awful lot about probiotics everywhere. And just knowing what ones you're deficient in. So, I guess a good question to ask as a follow-up is and you kind of explained it, like why do nutrient levels matter so much for aging well and just supplementing appropriately? >> Why does it matter? Because because you know, when we reach an optimal level of certain when we deficient in certain vitamins, minerals and we reach an optimal levels of those vitamins and minerals, we feel better. We improve our energy, improve fatigue, improve improve mental well-being. I don't quote me, I don't have the exact numbers, but vitamin D deficiency a lot of us not only people in Maine, but people in US are deficient in huge number of people deficient in vitamin D. And vitamin D is very important for mental health, for example, you know, for for immunity, for your bone health. It's just longevity and healthy aging, I would say. >> Okay. And I guess along with vitamin D, what are some examples of nutrients where low normal and or you know, lower side can still matter and still should probably be addressed. >> B12 comes to mind next. B12 is very important for energy production. Low normal people with low normal levels feel low energy, feel brain fog, feel very very fatigue or have those energy crashes in the in the afternoon. So, that would be my next important vitamin. Um to to know, B vitamins. >> Okay. And for our folks that are like in their 40s, 50s, 60s, beyond, afternoon crash is something, you know, we hear a lot. Um I guess why is this, other than B12, why is this conversation especially important for them? >> Oh, afternoon cra- crashes can be Well, first of all, you know, people want to feel good. You know, they if they're working people and they have afternoon crashes, they're unable to function in their role at work, at home. Um so, but afternoon crashes or fatigue in general, it could be very it could be multifactorial. It doesn't necessarily only comes from vitamin deficiency, but we often see it um um through hormone deficiencies, through uh cortisol levels. So, therefore, again, it's very important to see a functional medicine provider. And here at Mint Matrix, that's what we do. We, um you know, check levels and then we have a very in-depth conversation with patients in regards to their symptoms and um what their labs reflect. >> All right. And as um as a provider, what are some other symptoms that might make you think someone could be low in a key vitamin or mineral? >> Um again, I'm circling back again to B12. Like peripheral neuropathy, when people feel like they're feel like needles in their fingers or numbness in their legs, that could also be could be a B12 deficiency. Um what else? What uh magnesium? Low magnesium also can have muscle spasms. People feeling muscle spasms in the evening. Um I mean vitamin D we discussed. Um What else? I think those are would be the what comes to mind right now. >> Magnesium, B12 >> B12, vitamin D >> B >> Yeah, I mean it's very important also like I told you in the beginning coenzyme Q10 also very important enzyme especially for someone who is taking statins. Uh what yes, what statins do and statin is the medications to lower cholesterol. So what statins do is they lower your coenzyme Q10 level. And why you need coenzyme Q10 because coenzyme Q10 is involved involved in cellular energy. Uh so as we age we produce less coenzyme Q10 but someone who is on on statins in general will have low levels of Q10. So always recommend to supplement with Q10 someone who is on statins. >> Thank you. Thank you for explaining what that enzyme does cuz I was definitely going to ask. So that was actually super helpful. So thank you beating me to that. And I guess other than the ones the nutrients that you just named the vitamins, the minerals. I mean what are the nutrients that you you might have just named them that you commonly think about when someone is tired all the time? >> When someone is tired all the time? Uh >> [gasps] >> I already named them vitamin D, B12. I also NAD you know which also um involved in energy production. Um and taking NAD sometimes helps to boost that cellular energy production cuz again NAD is part of the ATP mitochondrial energy production. In my mitochondria, it's the um cellular energy production um part. So, that's an NAD involved in that that energy production. So, again, being lower on NAD um can also cause, you know, fatigue and and um sometimes helpful to supplement. >> And then, what about um things like brain fog, poor mood, feeling kind of blah, poor focus, anything you haven't named? >> No, I think I would still will will focus on on on uh oh, I well, another another supplement that's or well, actually mineral that it can very well play a role in fatigue is iron. Iron Iron is a lot uh yeah, so uh see a lot of uh perimenopausal females low in iron. Why? Because when when uh female has a menstrual cycle every month, if she loses a lot of blood, she loses iron. Uh and that's where the iron deficiency uh can come in. Um iron can play a role in in um you know, feeling that energy or feeling fatigue when you have low iron. >> And then, other than fatigue and brain fog and all that, I guess, what what deficiencies and or you know, lacking minerals can affect things like muscle, bone, strength, all that that you you kind of is synonymous with like aging, the loss of all that stuff, the lack of that. >> Yeah. Well, again, so vitamin D very important for bone health, but taking just vitamin D on its own, it's not it's helpful, but you need to take it together with vitamin K. Why you take it together with vitamin K? Because vitamin K actually helps to pull calcium out of your arteries and it directs it into the bone. And that's where vitamin D works synergistically together with calcium. You also need magne- magnesium for better absorption of a vitamin D. So, it's it's synergy between all those minerals in the body that's really important for bone health, for example. Um another example is selenium. Very important for thyroid health. Selenium involves in conversion of free T4 to free T4 to free T3. Those are thyroid hormones. And if you lacking selenium, that conversion would be affected. Zinc is another one. Zinc and selenium two most important supplements for or minerals, sorry, minerals for conversion of T4 to T3. Um And having a healthy thyroid, you have a healthy bone. I mean it again, it's it's all everything it's it's synergistic in a in the body. >> So, with the idea of synergistics in mind, if if you are a person that is eating pretty well, are there any root causes or things that would make someone low in nutrients, even if they are eating well, healthy, only whole foods, etc. >> Well, you know, by now I've seen so many people and eating healthy is very broad definition. What eating healthy for means for one person, it's could be a different meaning to me. So, and I've seen it a lot that people will come to me and say, well, we eat variety of food and and this and that and then, for example, you know, I eat a lot of fish and then I check their omega omega-3 status and it's very low. So, which which omega comes from fish. So, so that's where eating healthy is good, but you always need to check your levels and also we the soil that we have very deficient in in magnesium now. The quality of the soil that we have now. So, so that's where magnesium deficiency also is coming from. And and dietary sources are different from what we our grandparents had when they were growing up as far as food rich in in in nutrients. >> Yeah, I guess that's pretty true. It's way different now. The soil, everything. That's true. Um Are there any other supplements, things um as far as um you know, root causes and nutrients that people need to be aware of? >> There there are multiple multiple. And again, you know, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but you really need to check your levels before before we discuss, you know, going to discussion. Here we go, supplement. I My philosophy is is check and then and and then act on it. Don't just take blindly supplements because again, it's a trend on on some kind of social media. Do not do this because again, you can cause harm. As simple as calcium can cause harm if you, you know, do it without supervision of medical provider. And now we also have AI, you know, before it was Google MD that, you know, when I remember myself working in the hospitals and people would come with this Google printout and MD said this and this and this and the Google doctors. Now we have AI and but still even with the help of you know, technology it it doesn't it doesn't mean that, you know, it doesn't replace medical providers and and um you know, then always check your levels. Never never just blindly take things because it's trending on the on the internet. >> Got it. So that person dancing around on Tik Tok might not have your best intentions at heart is what I'm hearing. >> Yes. >> Some weird supplement hurt. Okay. That's good to know. Um so as far as like conventional approach goes, like where or how does conventional medicine miss the supplement conversation? Is something that's even talked about cuz other than vitamin D me personally as a patient, I don't have a lot of experience with it, but I don't know if my own experience is the norm. So >> You're absolutely right. Other than in vitamin D, I don't think any other levels are being checked or even discussed at at doctors or during you know, doctor's visits. First of all, the visits are very short. They are very you know task oriented. You here for for example your cholesterol. Here's your pill and no one even discussed about take coenzyme Q10 with your the statin for example because this is you know you're going to lower that level or and even with vitamin D there's difference between normal and optimal. So normal is a very wide range that it can go from like for example 0 to 10 and so someone can be normal at zero level and normal at 10. Which is doesn't really sound right to me. So we we're looking at optimal level somewhere in the middle where people feel the best. Optimal so and that's that's what we often see at a conventional medicine is that they're looking at the levels even they're low normal or you're normal. You know your vitamin D is low normal you're normal. You want to get your levels to an optimal level where you get this vitamin D benefits of vitamin D for for everything I discussed cardiovascular bone brain protection but it the level have to be at the optimal levels in order to get that benefit. >> Yeah that is something that we do get a lot here. And that seems to be the common experience for a lot of patients where or just people you know they're told their labs are normal but they still end up feeling like crap. So um you kind of just explained it but do you want to elaborate just a little bit more as to why people get told their labs are normal when they still feel depleted? >> Why they feel normal but they still depleted because yes again levels normal versus optimal normal based on you know, wide range of population and people and taken into consideration male, females. And and and but it's not personalized. It's not optimized for that person. So, it's very wide and and and that's why people like if we're saying in example of uh quickly the thyroid medicine TSH when we check check TSH, someone can be normal at 0.5 and can someone can be normal at four. I don't think it's it's possible because someone who's at 0.5 will not feel the same as the person who has TSH is four. So, that's why we optimize level of we're narrowing that window and we're saying, well, you somewhere in the middle people feel their best, which is two. And the same goes to vitamin D levels, B12 levels, and uh other levels that we're looking at. Optimal, not normal. >> So, you're I mean, it sounds like you're clearly helping patients figure out, you know, how to supplement, what to do for supplements. Why do so many patients often feel left to figure it out kind of on their own or with the help of Instagram or TikTok or some influencer on YouTube. >> Why? Because when Well, when people find us at Mid Metrics and see us, they get help. But if they don't know that we exist, [laughter] they Again, they go to a primary care and and vitamin D level being checked, nothing else. And that's that's it. And and they you know, then they left on their own to look for information on internet, to to, you know, ask the neighbor, ask the friend. And and are you taking? Oh, I'm taking vitamin D. Oh, it's been helping. I'm going to take vitamin D, too. So, yeah. So, that's that's what uh you know, people are trying to do when they start experiencing symptoms, when they don't, you know, feel their best. They start looking for, you know, help. >> Mhm. And you've touched on it a little bit. So, what can go wrong when people start to self-prescribe supplements and or go down the TikTok rabbit hole? >> I mean, supplements uh they're medications, but naturally made. They're not a chemical medicine, but they're still medicine. They're still uh involved, or they're still initiating some kind of process in the body. So, if you know, if if you're just blankly taking, uh for example, zinc, uh zinc goes together with copper, and you need about two to one ratio of zinc to copper in your body. If you overdo on zinc, and and you lower your copper, uh you're going to experience in symptoms of low copper. Or or again, if you just take vitamin D, you don't add vitamin K, you're not going to get uh as full benefit for bone protection without vitamin K or without magnesium. Um and and and and that goes with everything else, all other supplements. >> Wow, that's pretty interesting. And I mean, there's a lot of synergistic effects going on here. So, with that in mind, how does functional medicine decide what supplement someone actually needs? Like, what's the What's the process that that you use? >> So, the process we use here as a functional providers at Metametrix, we uh well, first we we um have a discovery call with every person just to discover their what their needs are, what they're looking for. Then we have an extensive lab work that we do uh yeah, looking at minerals, not only vitamin D, we're looking at iron, ferritin, B12. Uh you know, we we we really deep uh dive deep into into health and uh once results are back, we meet with uh patients and go over um takes about an hour to go over the results, discuss what we see, and come up with treatment plan. >> And as far as the treatment plan goes, what are some labs or markers you like to look at before building a treatment plan that has supplements in it? >> Everything. I like to see uh B12, I like to see vitamin D, I like to see iron and ferritin. Uh I like to see cholesterol panel, I like to see uh apolipoprotein B, I like to see little protein A. I know I'm throwing all these markers, but I'm just >> [laughter] >> This is what I I like to see to sort of a have a a better understanding of person's health. Uh in addition to of course hormones and thyroid and you know. >> Whole picture. >> Yes. Whole picture. >> And I know this comes up a lot. I mean, how do you think about food first or just organizing someone's eating habits versus supplements? >> Food first, absolutely. First food first. Everything comes That's that's that's a foundation. You know, it's it's it's a basic lifestyle that I I start everyone on. That's the that's the number one medicine I start people on, food, diet. [laughter] Let's look at and I always ask in in great in great details, what do you eat? Tell me what do you eat? And sometimes people say, "Oh, what do you mean?" No, describe me your what your breakfast look like. What do you what do your lunch, dinner? What are you eating? And yes, food first. But again, because of the quality of the soil, because of there's so many deficiencies. Um in vitamin D, for example, you know, sunshine is the best source of vitamin D. Here in Maine, you know, during wintertime gets dark early, no not a lot of sunshine. So, most of us deficient um you know, in vitamin D, but but even sometimes people in Florida will have vitamin D deficiencies. It's just either how we absorb it. Another thing is that I didn't touch upon, but I want to quickly say about absorption. You know, it helps, you know, if you're if you don't have a healthy gut, if you have inflammation, if you have some kind of maldigestion, if you have low stomach acid. Stomach acid is very important for um absorption of supplements. Need it. Stomach acid is needed for absorption. And if someone is, for example, on proton pump inhibitors, which a lot of uh people take proton pump inhibitors for heartburn. Uh that will decrease your acid production. Therefore, uh absorption of vitamins will be uh affected. So. So, that's uh Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Okay. So, basically, you know, there's a lot to this. Fairly complex. And I did hear that you definitely cannot supplement your way out of a crappy diet. Is that >> Yes, you cannot. You cannot. You have to change your diet. You have to change absolutely. I can throw a million supplement at you, but if if you don't change your diet, if you don't change your lifestyle, yeah, that's not going to It's going to help little bit, but but not not to where a person want to be optimal. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And you've mentioned a bunch of combinations. Could you just go through them again? Like what are some supplement combinations people should just get a better understanding of? >> Vitamin B with vitamin K. >> Mhm. >> Magnesium added to the combination. You can take zinc, but you need to take check your levels [snorts] of zinc and check your levels of copper to make sure that you know, you you don't create disbalance. Um Omega omega-3 index very important when you start supplementing with fish oil. For and there's research studies that have been done on you know, fish oil supplementation and omega-3 index. And there's certain number you want to reach when you supplementing with fish oil. You want to You want to have your omega-3 index higher somewhere between eight and nine. A lot of people are very low on omega fish index is three and four. So It's not a combination, but again it's it's you check levels and then you supplement. Um As far as other combinations I would say that would That's what comes to my mind now. >> I mean those are basically Oh, keep going. >> One more. One more. Iron. Iron. So, someone who is low in iron or a low low in ferritin. Ferritin tells us about iron storage. So, when we check for iron deficiency, we usually look at ferritin levels, not so much on iron cuz it changes on the daily basis, but ferritin gives us a more stable number. So, um when ferritin levels are low, as I told, people can experience a lot of fatigue. So, to replete iron levels, we do we give iron supplementation together with vitamin C. That's where you get the most absorption of iron is when you take it together with vitamin C. >> Thank you. Those two you did not mention. Thank you for explaining. >> Yeah. >> Ferritin was useful. Why would that strike instead of iron? Very, very helpful. Um so, there's a lot of hype a lot of supplements people could be taking. How do you separate evidence-based supplements from just wellness hype? >> So, how do I separate evidence-based supplements? Well, again, by looking at the levels, by checking the levels, but next step is So, you're low in vitamin D, for example, or you're low in in B12. Let's supplement. It's very, very important the quality of the supplement, where you get your supplement, and cuz getting supplements So, supplements are not FDA regulated. So, anyone can come up with a supplement, put it on a shelf, and say this is this is vitamin D, take it. So, really important to make sure that your supplements are third-party tested, that they are they have very little amount of fillers, very little amount of other ingredients, but they have and they they standardize to the certain percentage of what they're saying it's in inside. Very important. Another another supplement that that also can be very very helpful is turmeric. Turmeric is anti-inflammatory. Okay? But quality does matter. Quality does matter. We at MedMatrix we use a company called Fullscript and it's it's a like a dispenser of supplements, but medical pharmaceutical grade supplements. So, they're quality supplements. Companies that test their supplements, that go through third-party testing. And again, it's very important to make sure that when you when you need to take supplements, you supplement with quality. And and that reflects in in blood work. So, when we repeat blood work in 3 months from the initiation of treatment or in 6 months, we see levels rise. We see improvement. I often also see people take supplements from other stores and and levels don't don't go up. So, quality matters. >> Got it. So, are you telling me that the $5 and $10 supplements I'm buying at the drugstore aren't as effective as I thought? >> I'm telling you buyer be aware. >> [laughter] >> I'm telling you yes. Look at you know, if if it's a third-party tested, it will have like you you'll see on the bottom third-party tested. You'll see other testing on a bottle. Um you you will see, you know, you always have to look at ingredients. What are the ingredients besides what you're buying? Like if you're buying vitamin D, what are the other ingredients? If there is uh a long list of other ingredients, you probably don't want to take the supplement because in addition to vitamin D, you will take 10 more other ingredients on a daily basis. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, so checking the label probably pretty important. Okay. >> Checking label and and check checking quality of the supplement. >> Oh, just making sure it's like third-party verified like you said. >> Yeah, verified, tested. Yes. Yes. Mhm. >> All right. Super helpful. >> Yeah. >> Uh okay. Um now I guess we should shift gears just a little bit and talk about just what a client at MedMatrix might look at. Like so, when someone comes to MedMatrix with fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, concerns about aging, where would the process begin? How do they even start? >> All right. So, someone comes to MedMatrix with fatigue, poor sleep, um we start with discovery call. We start with uh you know, getting to know this person, getting to know uh you know, symptoms, when they began, uh how long uh this person has been dealing with this with the those symptoms, are there any other symptoms, any other chronic conditions. So, we gather all the information. We start with gather. After we gather or after this discovery call, um person has uh gets a blood work. Okay? Again, it's a very extensive blood work that we look at Yeah, we look at hormone, we look at vitamins, minerals, we look at look at cholesterol, we look at thyroid. And um once we have results back we schedule an initial appointment with that person and it takes about an hour. We go over extensively, we go over symptoms again, complaints, what the person is here for, how can we be of help and then we explain their their labs, like what we're seeing, what are the optimal levels why they should be at optimal levels and why they're feeling what they're feeling and we compare to their symptoms, to the labs and then afterwards we come up with the plan. >> And as far as those labs go, what would Men Matrix evaluate before recommending supplements? >> What would Men Matrix evaluate as far as health system, like systems? Like yeah, thyroid, cardiovascular health we do, you know, complete liver health, we do kidney health, we do all hormones, all sex hormones. We do minerals and vitamins. So, it's it's a pretty extensive lab work. You you don't get this lab work at primary care, not not even half of it. >> And what might a personalized supplement plan look like for healthy aging? For those that are interested. >> What might a personalized supplement health plan look like? Personalized. You It's Again, I listed all the common supplements, minerals, nutrients that people are deficient in and usually require for healthy aging, but we're all different and and what what's I need is different from you need and is different from someone else. So, it's really important to check, not guess, but check your levels. See where where where the deficiency is coming from. See the provider and then supplement based on those deficiencies. Don't just blindly supplement with something that you saw on TikTok or Instagram. >> So, if someone is supplementing appropriately, what does success look like with a functional medicine supplement? I guess how one would know they're successful here. >> What does success look like if someone is supplementing appropriately? It's relief of symptoms. It's feeling great. It's feeling optimized. It's, you know, no longer feeling fatigue. It's It's It's feeling energy. It's feeling alive. And and and yeah, so that's that's what success looks like. >> So, that's what success looks like. We pretty We outlined that pretty good. Um what are or what should people take away from this conversation before buying another supplement? >> What should people Sure. What should people take away from this conversation before buying supplements? Check. Do not guess. Deficiencies are common. There are certain minerals and nutrients that most of us deficient nowadays due to the soil quality, due due to you know uh deficient in dietary sources. So, before you we you start supplement, please check your levels. Don't just start supplementing because you saw somewhere on internet that this is a good supplement or there's a neighbor who is taking it. Check your levels. Make sure you deficient in it and then start supplementing. That would be my advice to all the listeners today. And definitely talk to provider when you check your levels. Talk to provider and come up with personalized plan. Again, because in addition to minerals, vitamins, there might be other deficiencies that needed to be corrected. >> All right. Well, that was very helpful. And we still have a couple of minutes left. If people have questions, they can drop them in the chat. Uh curious about iron. Is the question. >> Okay. Uh if you can if someone can elaborate on what about iron? Iron as a mineral, iron as a supplement? >> I suspect it's iron as a supplement. >> So, iron as a supplement, uh iron as a as a supplement is very important to take with vitamin C because that's how iron gets absorbed better. We often times recommend taking iron also every other day for for better absorption. Uh making sure you take your iron away from other supplements because other supplements can interfere with iron absorption. And because iron can be very heavy on the stomach and can cause constipation, there's different uh compounds of iron. Iron bisglycinate tends to be less uh more gentle on the stomach and less constipating. I don't know if I answered the question, but >> I just Yeah, I think so. You answered it for me. >> Okay. >> I got a better understanding as to how not to be constipated and take iron, so thank you for that. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh I got a question just >> Yeah. >> for me. Thoughts on that green powder people drink when they're healthy. Any thoughts on that? I'm still undecided as to whether or not that's good. >> I have to look at the ingredients of that. I heard about this green Is it A1 A1 >> Yeah, AG1. It's like, you know, been around for a while. >> Yes. Yes. And you're right. I hear a lot and I I yeah, I hear a lot people being on I have to look at the ingredients and see what's what's there what what what an actual Is it for given for uh general energy? >> It's almost like being marketed as like a multivitamin you can drink. >> I don't know. I have to look and see what's what's I I I like I said, I just don't blindly take things. I I have to look what what ingredients they are, why am I taking it. And also, uh multivitamins are good, but depending on the sometimes the dosage of certain minerals and vitamins in multivitamin is it's not enough for to uh replete the deficiency. Okay? And again, favor our favor vitamin D. You know, what vitamin D those in multivitamin is not enough. You need if if you're deficient. If you're deficient, but how do you know that you're deficient? You check your levels. So. >> So, multivitamin good place to start, not the end, usually. >> Right. Right. Yes. >> And it looks like you did answer that question on iron because the last thing I got was thank you. In the little comments, thank you. Um Yeah, thank you. It looks like we answered the question. >> Good. >> Any other questions we can answer and just drop them in the comments and Miss Sophia here will happily answer them. Oh, we don't have to go the whole time? Oh, if no one's asking we can just wrap it up. All right. So, I guess that's it. We got the okay to just wrap things up. Thank you so much for being with us. Sophia answered a lot of questions for me personally. Now I won't be constipated when I take my iron, so I am thrilled about that. So, thank you. Um also cleared up what vitamins should be taken with what. And last but not least, made sure to let us all know before you start supplementing and flushing literally potentially flushing [clears throat] your money right down the toilet, go talk to a provider to make sure you're getting the most out of the money you're spending. >> Yes. Absolutely right. Thank Thank you so much for me and uh it was my pleasure. Thank you. >> Thank you, Ms. Sophia. >> Bye.