24: Top 6 Supplements You Should Take for Optimal Health

00:06 - Michael Kummer (Host)

You're listening to the Primal Shift podcast. I'm your host, Michael Kummer, and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your Primal Self. Hey guys, welcome back to the Primal Shift podcast. In this episode, I'm going to share with you the top six supplements I think you should consider consuming. At least those are the ones that I consume on a regular basis. Now, one thing I want to get out of the way right away is supplements are meant to supplement, as the name already implies, a healthy lifestyle and not act as a band-aid to mitigate poor lifestyle choices. So always keep that in mind and, whenever possible, choose whole food sources to get certain nutrients instead of any supplement. But the problem is not the problem, but the fact is that we live in a modern life where we cannot always make the perfect choices. We don't always live in the perfect environment that's conducive to optimal health. So there is certainly a place for supplements that can help mitigate some of the things that are very difficult, if not impossible, to avoid. And so, with that said, let's jump right in with the number one supplement. That's not actually a supplement, but more like a food, I want to say, and that is salt, or sodium more specifically. And sodium has a lot of important functions in the body Fluid balance, nerve function, muscle function, nutrient absorption, heart function, etc. So it's obviously very important. The problem is that a lot of people are under the misconception that consuming too much sodium increases their risk of cardiovascular disease. And that's because, unfortunately, that's what we've been told by many medical professionals, by the government and anyone in between don't consume too much sodium, it's going to cause high blood pressure and it's going to give you a heart attack. That's not true. That's a myth that has long been busted. In fact, based on the latest scientific evidence, the ideal sodium intake per day appears to be somewhere between 4 to 8 grams, and considering that sodium or that table salt has only about 50% sodium. The rest is chloride. That means if you want to consume 4 to 8 grams of sodium per day, you actually have to consume 8 to 16 grams of salt. That's a lot of salt. The government recommendation for your maximum sodium intake is somewhere I don't know 2300 or even, let's say, 2000 milligrams a day. So 2 grams a day, that's way too less for most people. In fact, the studies that I referenced and you can read more about on my blog I'm going to link everything down below clearly show that the highest risk of cardiovascular diseases with sodium intakes of less than 2 grams. If you follow the government recommendation of consuming less than 2 grams of sodium per day, you actually have the highest risk of cardiovascular disease. Obviously, there is something like consuming too much sodium. So if you consume more than 8 grams a day, you also increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, but if you stay within a sweet spot and my daily intake is roughly, I want to say it's 4 to 5 grams a day, and I feel really good with that. 

03:30

Now, one thing that's important to consider is not all salts are created equal. You want to make sure you get a high quality salt that's free of heavy metals and microplastics in particular. The problem with microplastics is there are really two sources of how they can get into the salt. One is through the source. Unfortunately, our oceans are contaminated with plastics, one of the reasons why we decided with MQA supplements to ship everything in glass bottles and not plastic, and the plastic in the ocean. Can that actually end up as microplastics in your salt? If it's sea salt? That's one of the reasons why I typically try to avoid sea salt. The second source of microplastics is the grinder. If you have a regular salt grinder and if the grinding components are made out of plastic, then every time you grind the salt you actually grind a little bit of plastic as well, and it ends up on your food and in your body, and that's obviously not a good thing. Either use a salt shaker or just a little char where we grab the salt and put it on our food, or use a grinder with ceramic discs instead of plastic. 

04:37

One thing that has made me think is how did our ancestors get access to 4-8 grams of sodium per day? Obviously, I would argue that, depending on where they lived, maybe they didn't have a source of salt. Where did they get the salt from? I think, just based on what I know about how our ancestors lived and how some of the modern hunter-gatherer tribes live, is they consume a fair amount of animal blood, and blood is obviously a good source of electrolytes, including sodium. So the Marci in Tanzania, for example, for most of the year or for extended periods, they consume blood mixed with raw milk, and that's a good source of electrolytes and, in particular, sodium. So that's one reason why they might not need extra salt, because they just get it from their regular diet. 

05:27

The second source might be just the soil, and the third one might be spring water. Natural spring water has significantly more depending on the type of spring and the region where it's from has significantly more minerals, not only trace minerals, but significant amounts of potentially magnesium and sodium and calcium in particular, that you won't find in tap water. And, in particular, if you filter your water, if you have an RO filter, reverse osmosis filter that strips out everything from the water. So if you drink RO water that doesn't, that is not equipped, or if your filter is not equipped with a remineralization cartridge, then you basically drink empty water, and that can actually be even worse than maybe not worse, but equally bad as drinking tap water, because drinking water that's void of everything makes that water attract nutrients from either the surrounding tissue, from your digestive system, from the food you eat, from other areas of your body, and so you might actually end up losing electrolytes by drinking water that's stripped of everything, and so that's one of the reasons I don't recommend drinking RO water unless it's equipped, or your filter is equipped, with a remineralization cartridge. But even so, even with the remineralization like the one we have in our home here, the amount of minerals in the water is significantly less than if you get a high quality European spring water, a Gerlsteiner or maybe a San Pellegrino. Those have significantly more minerals, and so I would argue that if we consume predominantly filtered water, even if it's the best water we can produce here in our area, there is likely still a need to supplement with salt, because we don't get as much from my. 

07:05

I don't drink blood very often. I don't have access to fresh blood. Unfortunately, very often Our water source is not as rich in minerals as a spring water maybe somewhere and so that's one of the reasons why I believe that increasing my sodium intake and my electrolyte intake in particular is important and beneficial and, as I've mentioned initially, I feel really good by having a higher salt intake or a higher electrolyte intake in particular, and of course, in our sodium is not the only electrolyte. There is got to be a balance between sodium, potassium and magnesium in all of those played together and need to be in a certain ratio, and that's one of the reasons why we really like element, not because of its taste, but also because of the ratio of electrolytes that it's got in there. It's mostly sodium, of course. 1000 milligrams of serving, and so I typically have one or two of those servings per day, especially on days that I work out and I sweat a lot. So element is a great choice for us. 

07:57

But just from a regular salt perspective, we use either Redmond Real Salt or Oryx I think it's pronounced, and Redmond Real Salt is from the mountains here in the US it's the domestic brand and Oryx is from the Kalahari, from the desert, and so those two types of salts are fairly high quality and we use them a lot. In fact, we actually get a 50 pound or 40 pound bag every so often of salt, maybe once a year or so, and then we go through that and then we order again. And regardless of what salt you use, just make sure it's unprocessed. It has all the trace minerals, it's not stripped of everything. Just plain white salt that's highly processed and stripped of everything of every impurity is likely not good because it's not nature identical. 

08:37

So get something either in a Redmond Real Salt or Oryx or Himalayan Salt, whatever the case might be, just sea salt is something I would avoid, but beyond that, something that's raw and unprocessed, and see how you feel, you know if you have muscle cramps, if you have a brain fog, if you feel like with low energy levels, etc. All of those things can go back to electrolyte issues and I notice in particular, in particular with exercise performance. If I consume significant amount of salt before I workout, I crush it every single time and it's an app, it's the best pre workout I think you can take. You don't need caffeine, you don't need amino acids or anything. Just increase your salt intake before a workout, when you likely perform much better. 

09:17

The second one, very closely related because it's also one of the electrolytes, is magnesium and, much like sodium, magnesium plays a crucial role in several factors in your body, including bone health, cardiovascular health, muscle function, of course, stress and anxiety reduction, and that's actually one of the reasons why we supplement with magnesium. Arguably, our modern lives are very relatively stressful and there are certain stressors that are not easy to escape from and we just have to deal with them and try to respond to those stressors in the best way we can, you know, and become more resilient to stress, as I've talked about in previous episodes and on the blog, but supplementing with magnesium is an easy way to help your body deal better with stress and reduce your stress and anxiety, and by adding magnesium we've noticed a significant difference, especially if we do it before going to bed. You know stress and anxiety is a is a sure recipe for poor sleep, and so you can directly improve your sleep and the quality of your sleep by supplementing with magnesium. It's also important magnesium that is to regulate other minerals and for digestive health. That's also something that a lot of people don't know. If you've got issues, then, in addition to some of the other things that I'll supplement that I'll discuss in this in this episode, supplementing with magnesium can also help. 

10:37

Now, there are different types or different magnesium salts on the market, so if you look at a magnesium supplement, you know you won't find one, that you likely won't find one that is chemically identical to what's found in real food. You know, typically magnesium supplements come in the form of salts and there are different types of those salts, and there is an argument, or some people believe that the different, different types of salts are more conducive to trigger specific benefits of the magnesium, and you know I haven't done extensive research and an experimentation with it to see if one works significantly better than the other. But based on what I've read, citrate might be better to help with constipation. So especially I've heard from many people who go on a carnivore diet because they've got issues like IBS or whatever, and then they get constipated and I'm like, okay, what can I do? And with every dietary change of course there is a risk of constipation or sometimes even diarrhea, and so supplementing with magnesium citrate can actually help ease up the constipation and keep things moving. 

11:44

Sulfate might help with relaxation, sulfate might help with cognition, torate with heart health, chloride with digestion, malate with muscle cramps, et cetera, and better muscle function and glycinate with sleep. Now we typically use a product from natural vitality. It's called CAM and we take it in the evening. It's just two teaspoons of that and it contains magnesium carbonate and we've had very good experience with that in terms of improving sleep and reducing stress and anxiety before going to bed. We also use magnesium breakthrough from bioptimizers I'm going to link that down in the show notes and that product comes in capsules, so we use it permanently for traveling, where going through security with a Ziploc bag of white powder might raise some eyebrows, especially if you take it at night to relax. Might not be the best thing. So in capsules, much more convenient to travel and that contains actually a mix of different types of magnesium. So you kind of get the best of all the different magnesium salts, or most of them at least, and that can also help with preventing stomach upset or loose stools in particular, because if you overdo it with magnesium you might experience loose stools. My wife has noticed that when she takes elements during the day and then magnesium at night, she has loose stools the next morning. And so to kind of mitigate that, having a mix of different magnesium salts might help or just reduce the amount that you take. That's usually the easiest way of dealing with digestive upset or digestive issues after supplementing with magnesium. 

13:18

The third supplement is one of my favorite ones and it's creatine. Creatine, I think, is one of the most studied supplements, at least as far as exercise performance is concerned. It's incredibly safe. It has very few, if any, side effects. There's actually only one that I'm aware of If you consume too much, again it leads to loose stools. So I've noticed that a couple of times where, starting with creatine, I'm like, okay, more is better. Instead of taking five grams, I take 10 because I'm a big boy. Nope, I wasn't a big boy for long I had to go to the party, so that's the only side. But beyond that, creatine is incredibly effective to enhance muscle mass and strength, to support brain health. The underlying mechanism of creatine is that it improves energy production. It improves ATP production, the energy currency of yourselves, and so by being able to produce more energy, your muscles work better, you are stronger, you have better exercise performance, your brain works better, it helps with muscle recovery and there are even some studies suggesting that creatine can help with neurological diseases. 

14:23

And naturally, creatine is found in meat. So if you're in a carnivore diet already and if you eat a couple of pounds of meat a day, especially beef, you might get all the creatine you need. In fact, one pound of beef is approximately one to two grams of creatine. Now I usually take five grams of creatine before working out without any gut issues, and in addition to that, I consume probably two pounds or so of beef a day, so I get some extra. I might get up to maybe 10 grams or so, and I've seen that to make a significant difference in recovery, in retaining lean muscle tissue, even when I don't work out like we just came back from Spain, didn't work out in two weeks and I came back and I didn't look any different whatsoever. And obviously muscle tissue doesn't go away overnight. I'm aware of that. But usually in the past, before I had the lifestyle that I have now and before I supplemented with creatine regularly, I could tell a difference after two weeks of not working out my muscle tone and everything would be just a little bit off. And this time I haven't noticed that at all. 

15:30

And the cool thing with creatine is it's super inexpensive. We use a product from bulk supplements. It's a creatine monohydrate powder and it's inexpensive. It's no side effects. Just don't consume too much. I mean, I really encourage you to ease it in, go slow instead of taking 10 or more grams a day and then you end up on the toilet in an inconvenient time. But beyond that, it's one of the best supplements, absolute no brainer that I think everyone should take and therefore is something that you might not even have heard about. 

15:59

And it's a product from a company called Intelligence of Nature and the product is called Ion Ion standing for Intelligence of Nature, gut support, and it's a humic extract that's sourced domestically from ancient soil that's roughly 60 million years old, so I like to call that gut support basically very old dirt water that's what it is and it contains a blend of bacterial metabolites called folate, as well as some trace minerals and amino acids. But it's basically an ancient water that has a unique family of carbon molecules with oxygen binding sites that are produced by bacteria when they digest nutrients, and so the advantage or the benefits of that is that Ion facilitates electron transfer, so basically it improves intracellular communication, because cells communicate by exchanging electrons, and so by improving that communication it can help with certain critical functions in your body, like nutrient absorption, dilation of metals and tight junction integrity. And that's actually how I stumbled upon Intelligence of Nature when I dealt with gut issues, because a lot of people you know, there is this, this delicate lining in your gut, and there are openings in that lining called tight junctions, and, as the name already implies, they're supposed to be tight, meaning they should prevent partially or undigested proteins and pathogens from getting from your gut into your bloodstream, because if those offenders get into your bloodstream, then the immune system responds, and with an inflammatory action basically, so it mounts an immune response that, if that happens every day let's say you have what's called leaky gut, meaning you have wide, tight junctions where stuff can just get into your bloodstream then your immune system constantly tries to attack those foreign invaders and might be allergences from the food, might be undigested proteins that don't look like they should be in your blood, might be pathogens, whatever the case might be. And so if you have leaky gut, you basically suffer from chronic inflammation, and chronic inflammation is one of the root causes of any metabolic disease, and it compromises your immune system. It can obviously lead to gut issues, to skin issues, acne, eczema, etc. 

18:27

And so having a leaky gut is not a good thing, and ion can make sure those tight junctions are tight, and it can do that relatively quickly. So your supplement with that stuff and within a short period, those tight junctions are tight again, preventing your immune system from being overreactive, and so it's one of the best supplements you can take whenever you know you're exposed to higher levels of stress, maybe while you're traveling, because stress is one of those factors that can cause your gut to stop functioning optimally and to lead to leaky gut and other immune type of dysfunction. And so we use intelligence of nature, gut support when we're traveling during the colder time of the year which is right about now, depending on when you're listening to this, and when we're exposed to elevated stress levels. And they also have that as a nasal spray, because your immune system really starts in your nose, in your mucus membranes, as well as in your gut, so you can have a nasal spray to make sure that everything wherever pathogens could potentially get into your body stuff is tight. They also have it for pets. We used it for our German Shepherd in the beginning when he had food allergies, even though he was on a raw meat diet. So we did that and it helped a lot and it's just a great supplement that you can use in your travel bag or whatever, and whenever you're on an airplane, whenever you're traveling, whenever you're exposed to more stress than usual, it's just take a shot or spray it into your nose and it can significantly improve your fighting chances and avoid getting sick. 

20:00

Number five is somewhat similar, and that's bovine colostrum, and similar in the sense of what it can do to help you with your gut health and with immunity, etc. And colostrum is the first milk that mammals produce when giving birth and it's a very thick milk that's very rich in micronutrients, including lactoferrin and growth factors and immunoglobulins and lysosim and some of the micronutrients that can dramatically improve your gut health, boost immune support and also improve exercise performance, and that's one of the things I mean. A lot of people know that colostrum is beneficial if you've got issues or to help with immunity, etc. But most people don't know that it can also help with exercise performance. There are several studies out there and I have a dedicated blog post on that that you can check out in a YouTube video where I talk about how colostrum can help with improving exercise performance. 

20:51

But the main reason why we started supplementing with colostrum and why we always have some at home, especially again during the colder time of the year when there is increased likelihood of getting sick, maybe because of increased stress, maybe because of dietary changes, less sunlight, whatever the case might be and so we always keep colostrum at home and specifically for in the context of gut issues, colostrum can help tighten those tight junctions again healing your leaky gut basically, and some of the micronutrients in colostrum have also been shown to help repair the lining of your gut, so that delicate lining that's just a few cells thick in your gut can get damaged because of poor dietary choices, stress, environmental toxins etc. And colostrum can help rebuild and repair the lining relatively quickly and make sure those tight junctions are tight. As far as immune support is concerned, it really goes back to improving your gut health, because your immune system again, you know it starts in your nose and in your gut, and if you suffer from leaky gut, then that will lead to a compromised immune system, because your immune system is likely already over responding and trying to put out fires that it shouldn't have to put out, because there is stuff getting from your gut into your bloodstream because of those not so tight tight junctions. And so there is actually a study that I found is really impressive. They use bovine colostrum in the context of influenza, and what the scientists concluded was that supplementing with colostrum reduced the incidence of complications and hospital admissions related to the flu by 300%. That's quite impressive, and so that's the second reason why we supplement with colostrum during the colder time of the year. 

22:32

And then, of course, you know, for me personally, you know I take it to improve access as performance, to improve recovery and to just, you know, perform better and really, at the end of the day, reduce my risk of injury. You know, I perform obviously better if I'm not injured, and whenever I get injured, that's detrimental to my performance. And so I do everything I can to improve recovery, improve performance and reduce the chance of getting hurt. And so that's another reason why we always have colostrum at home, and the product we use right now is from Equip. It's called core colostrum. It's a very clean product. 

23:02

I really like all the stuff from Equip. Really it's one of my favorite supplements brand and we use that just a couple of scoops, you know, every day. You can mix it with milk, you can mix it with water, you can, you know, pour it in a smoothie, whatever you want. It's a powder. At the end of the day it doesn't really taste like much. It has a little bit of a milky vanilla kind of taste, but it's really tasteless for the most part and mixes easily into other foods. Number six, the last one, and of course you know I'll bring it up for those of you who know me. You know that I have my wife and I actually have a supplements brand called MK Supplements and we sell a freeze dried beef organs, and that's the number six on the list beef organs. I mean ideally, as I mentioned initially, the best source of nutrients in general is real food, fresh food, if you have access to it, if you can source it. 

23:53

With organs in particular, I have seen it is sometimes challenging to source organs to. Some people don't like the taste. Well, a lot of people unfortunately don't like the taste. It's something that I think we unlearned to appreciate. I think our grandmothers and grandgrandmothers they consumed organs significantly more often and they seem to be okay with that. These days not so much. There's a taste and texture concern. There's a convenience of sourcing, a preparation, a refrigeration concern. With organs, you obviously don't want them to spoil you when they keep them fresh and etc. But my wife and I founded MK Supplements in 2021 to provide a convenient source of regeneratively raised and 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef organs for the entire family for our family, of course, but for everyone else as well. 

24:40

The reason why I think freeze-striped beef organs are great is there are two reasons. One is beef organs well, all organs, but beef in particular. Organs are an excellent source of micronutrients, meaning minerals, vitamins, peptides, enzymes, coenzymes, cofactors and anything in between. We might not even fully understand all the components in beef organs and why they are beneficial to our health. But one thing is for sure if we look at our ancestors, if we look at modern hunter or gatherer tribes, if we look at carnivorous mammals in nature, they always consume the organs first. Even our dog if we give him a bowl of raw muscle meat and organs liver, heart, kidney, pancreas, even the whole gut, intestines he consumes the organs first before eating the muscle meat. He has not been influenced in any way by brands, by commercials, by opinions by governments on what to eat and how to eat. He just goes by what's intuitive to him and he goes for the organs first, every single time. Even if we look at modern hunter-gatherers, they also consume the organs. They go for the organs first. They consume them first because they know it's where most of the nutrients are. 

26:00

Now I'm not saying that regular muscle meat is bad and that you cannot live a healthy life by consuming only muscle meat, especially if you're mixing eggs, which is another great source of micronutrients. But I believe, I strongly believe, that everyone should be consuming organs fresh if possible, but freeze-dried is the second best option, I would say. And just one thing I want to point out is that more is not always better. I've heard from some that say oh, instead of one serving I'm going to take two or three, because if they get some energy from consuming liver or whatever the case might be, then consuming twice the amount is better. And that's not always the case, because, at the end of the day, organs are not a magic pill by any means. They are just sources of micronutrients, and if we are deficient in certain micronutrients, that might lead to lower energy levels or to hair loss or to any of the other issues that you might have experienced in the past. And so if you fix those nutrient deficiencies by consuming organs, you suddenly operate at an optimal level. 

26:59

But consuming more doesn't always mean that you get more of those benefits. You suddenly become superhuman. That's not the case. There is something as consuming too much of certain micronutrients, especially of the fat soluble ones. So just to give you an idea, and another thing that I want to point out is, whenever you consume supplements beef organ supplements in particular always keep the ratio of those organs as they occur in nature in mind. 

27:25

So if you get an organ mix, an organ complex, and it has the same amount of liver, the same amount of heart, the same amount of pancreas, etc. Etc. That's not what you would find in nature. If you butcher a cow, you get a huge liver, you get a smaller heart, you get two kidneys combined, a smaller than the heart. The spleen smaller than the two kidneys, the pancreas even smaller. So there is a ratio that you roughly want to follow. It doesn't have to be rocket science, but it's one of the reasons why our beef organ supplement that we just launched not too long ago has nature identical ratios of those five, the top five organs in beef cattle, instead of just doing the same amount of liver, the same amount of heart, etc. Etc. So that's something I would encourage you to keep in mind, especially if you buy individual organs, consume them in ratios as they would occur in nature. That only makes sense, in my opinion. 

28:16

If you wonder how much of that stuff do you need, it really depends a little bit on your metabolic health, on your diet, on your excesses regimen, on your stress levels, on your lifestyle, basically. But for reference, what I consume on a daily basis, I consume a full serving of beef organs. So that's three grams of freeze-dried beef organs with most liver, a little bit less heart, a little bit less kidney, a little bit less spleen, a little bit less pancreas. So nature identical ratios, but overall it's three grams of those five organs. And then I consume two, half a servings or two capsules of heart and spleen, just because to get some of those more immune boosting micronutrients and some of those micronutrients that are beneficial for exercise performance and recovery, since I do work out intensively quite a bit. 

29:04

And then I also consume half a serving of bone and marrow. I do consume quite a bit of raw dairy, so I get a lot of calcium and minerals in particular from raw dairy. But of course I want to get some of the stem cells etc in the bone marrow, because bone marrow is unfortunate. As much as I love eating it fresh, it's not something I have access to every single day. My wife does roughly the same in our kids they're eight and 10. They get half a serving of each of those three products. Now, if a discount code for you, if you use code PrimalShift, you get 15% off your first order. So check that out. 

29:37

And with that we're going to wrap up this episode. I hope it was helpful for you to kind of get an idea of what are the supplements that I consume on a regular basis, and which ones are the ones that you might want to consider to optimize certain areas of your life. Again, without taking shortcuts, always make sure you have a solid foundation before you worry about supplementing with stuff, otherwise it's likely going to be a waste of money. With that we're going to wrap it up. I hope you like this episode. Let me know if you don't shoot me an email. I always love to hear feedback from listeners and readers and I hope I'll hear and see you in the next episode. Bye you.