In 2012, I became permanently disabled. Seizures, a brain injury, multiple surgeries, PTSD, chronic pain — the kind of diagnosis that makes you stop trusting the life you had and start searching, urgently, for anything that might give some of it back.
I fell victim to nearly all of it. The detox regimens and the entire supplement architecture built around them. Collagen, before I understood enough to evaluate whether it was doing anything at all. If you’re reading this because you’re somewhere in that same search right now, cycling through what the algorithm hands you, I’d guess you’re standing roughly where I was standing then. I’m not writing this from above that experience. I’m writing it from having lived inside it for years.
That’s the honest part most content in this space skips: it took years. Cycling through one thing after another. Thousands of dollars, by the time I added it up. Moments that felt like real breakthroughs, followed by long stretches of nothing, followed by outright failure.
In This Article
How I Actually Evaluate What I Take Now
What changed wasn’t a single supplement working. It was a slower shift in how I understood what I was even looking at — physiology, pharmacokinetics, pharmacology, and an honest read on marketing and incentives. That combination is what finally let me evaluate a supplement claim instead of just reacting to it. What it led me back to, after years of cycling through the newest thing, was almost embarrassingly simple: foundational movement, foundational supplementation, the actual basics of what a body needs, done consistently.
What follows is an honest account of what I’ve personally tried, tested on myself, and either kept, cycled in situationally, or walked away from — and why.
The Framework I Use Before Anything New
The evidence-ladder thinking mentioned above isn’t just a phrase — it’s an actual sequence I run through now, every time, before adding anything new to what I take. It didn’t exist for me in the early years. I wish it had. Laying it out plainly here, separate from any specific supplement’s story, is the most useful thing I can hand a reader who’s standing where I used to stand.
Before Adding Anything New, I Ask:
What specific problem am I actually solving? Not a vague sense of wanting to feel better — a named symptom, a lab value, a documented gap. “General wellness” isn’t specific enough to evaluate against.
Where does the evidence for this actually sit? Cell-culture and animal data are the bottom of the ladder — interesting, not sufficient on their own. Human observational data is higher. Multiple controlled human trials, ideally with meta-analysis behind them, is where I start taking a claim seriously enough to spend money on it.
Who benefits from me believing this works? Not as cynicism for its own sake — just an honest accounting of incentives. A claim can be true and still be marketed dishonestly; the marketing itself is never proof either way.
What would tell me it’s not working? If I can’t answer this before I start, I won’t be able to answer it honestly after. A defined stopping point matters as much as a defined starting point.
Does this interact with anything I’m already taking, including prescribed medication? This is the one step that isn’t optional and isn’t something to research alone — it’s a conversation with the physician managing that medication, every time.
Running something through that sequence doesn’t guarantee the right answer. It guarantees an honest one — which, after years of the opposite, was worth more to me than certainty ever was.
At a Glance
Foundational: whey protein isolate, creatine monohydrate, magnesium glycinate, vegan EPA/DHA, vitamin D3 + K2, ubiquinol CoQ10, vitamin B12, psyllium husk, and vitamin C. Situational or experimental: tools such as berberine, used for a defined reason rather than automatically promoted into the foundation. Retired or discontinued: items that no longer solved a clear problem, were not tolerated well, or did not earn a continuing place. Personal practices: celery juice and the Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie remain separate from the evidence-supported nutritional foundation.
What Earned a Foundational Place
My current foundation is deliberately smaller and less dramatic than earlier versions of my routine. These are not all here for the same reason, and calling something foundational does not mean it treats my medical conditions. Some help me meet nutritional needs; some have useful human evidence for specific outcomes; some are practical tools that fit the way I eat and train.
Whey Protein Isolate and Creatine Monohydrate
Protein adequacy matters for maintaining and rebuilding muscle, particularly as we age and when activity includes resistance work. Whey isolate is a practical way for me to help meet that need; it is not a treatment. Creatine monohydrate has one of the stronger evidence bases in sports nutrition for strength and high-intensity performance, with additional evidence supporting its use alongside resistance training. I keep the established muscular and performance case separate from more speculative claims about creatine as a cure-all for the brain or aging.
Magnesium Glycinate
Magnesium remains part of my foundation, but magnesium L-threonate no longer does. I tried L-threonate and later discontinued it because I did not tolerate it well enough to justify continuing. Human research on L-threonate is interesting but still limited and formulation-specific; that is very different from saying its marketed cognitive claims are settled. Glycinate is the form that remains in my routine.
Vegan EPA/DHA, Vitamin D3 + K2, and Ubiquinol CoQ10
I use algae-derived EPA and DHA as a direct source of long-chain omega-3s. I use vitamin D3 + K2 as part of my nutritional foundation, while avoiding the oversimplified claim that K2 has been proven to “direct” calcium exactly where we want it and prevent deposition everywhere we do not. Ubiquinol CoQ10 participates in mitochondrial electron transport and cellular energy biology; that established role does not make it a proven treatment for neurological recovery or fatigue from every cause.
Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, and Psyllium Husk
These are less glamorous and easier to explain. B12 helps cover an important nutritional need in the context of the way I eat. Vitamin C is required for collagen biosynthesis and has other established physiological roles. Psyllium is supplemental fiber with useful human evidence for bowel regularity and, in appropriate populations, effects on cholesterol and glycemic measures. I use it as fiber support rather than turning those findings into a promise that it treats disease.
What I Use Situationally or Experiment With
Berberine — Evidence Worth Taking Seriously, Without Calling It Medication
Berberine has human clinical evidence suggesting effects on glucose-related measures in people with metabolic disorders, which is enough to make it more than a mechanistic curiosity. It is not enough to treat a supplement as interchangeable with prescribed glucose-lowering medication. When I experiment with it, I treat it as a defined experiment rather than automatically promoting it into my permanent foundation.
Ashwagandha and Probiotics — Context Matters
I have experienced a subjective calming effect with ashwagandha. That experience is real to me, but it does not prove that cortisol changed or establish a mechanism. Human research suggests possible benefits for some stress and sleep outcomes, while formulations, study sizes, safety considerations, and medication interactions matter. Probiotics are similarly context-dependent: effects are strain- and indication-specific, so I do not treat “take a probiotic every day” as a universal rule.
What I Tried, Retired, or Reconsidered
Alpha-Lipoic Acid
I used ALA during a period when nerve pain from back and neck injuries was a major issue. That pain later resolved and I eventually retired ALA. There is clinical research on ALA, particularly in diabetic peripheral neuropathy, but my improvement while taking it does not prove that ALA caused my nerve pain to resolve.
Zinc — A Useful Lesson in Not Confusing Mechanism With Diagnosis
At one point I was taking supplemental zinc regularly while dealing with bilateral pain in several joints. High supplemental zinc intake can interfere with copper absorption, and copper has established roles in connective-tissue biology. Those facts made zinc and copper status reasonable things for me to reconsider. What they did not establish was that zinc caused my pain, that copper deficiency had shut down connective-tissue repair throughout my body, or that bone-marrow expansion explained the symptoms. My pain improved after I changed what I was doing, but that remains personal temporal evidence rather than proof of a specific causal mechanism. The experience changed how I think: when a supplement might be creating a problem, adding another supplement is not automatically the answer.
Digestive Enzymes
Digestive enzymes are no longer something I need to describe as an automatic daily foundation. I reserve them for meals or situations where they have a clear practical purpose, rather than assuming that everyone—or every meal—benefits from supplemental enzymes.
NAC, B-Complex, and Other Moving Parts
Some products have moved in and out of my routine as I have reassessed the actual need. NAC is a biochemical precursor to glutathione, but that fact alone does not establish a broad clinical “liver detox” benefit. B-complex products can be useful when they address an actual nutritional need, but more B vitamins are not automatically better. These are good examples of why I no longer turn every plausible mechanism into a permanent supplement.
Collagen Supplements
I used collagen and eventually stopped. I cannot cleanly attribute changes I experienced to collagen itself or to a single alternative “collagen synthesis pathway.” The more durable lesson was that adequate protein, vitamin C, overall nutrition, training or rehabilitation where appropriate, and the underlying cause of a connective-tissue problem matter more than assuming one powder supplies a missing solution.
NAD+ Precursors (NMN, NR) and NAD Products
The biology around NAD metabolism is interesting, but raising a biomarker or producing compelling animal data is not the same as demonstrating the broad anti-aging outcomes often used to market these products. I have not found the human-outcomes case compelling enough to make them part of my foundation.
Beef Organ/Liver Capsules
I have personally noticed nervous-system irritability after eating conventionally raised beef. I cannot establish from that experience that adrenaline in beef caused the response, and I do not present that proposed mechanism as established science. Organ capsules also do not solve a nutritional problem I need them to solve. More on how I think about meat quality and personal response is in Choosing the Cleanest Meats for Healing.
Greens Powders and Mushroom Tinctures
These products can have legitimate uses, but I generally prefer obtaining vegetables and mushrooms as foods when practical. Concentrated powders and extracts are not automatically ineffective, and whole foods are not automatically superior for every purpose; the relevant questions are what compound or nutrient is being sought, how the product is prepared, whether the studied formulation matches the product, and whether it solves a real need.
Personal Practices That Sit Outside the Foundation
Celery Juice and the Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie
I still use celery juice and the Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie, but I no longer place them in the same evidence category as established nutritional requirements or well-supported interventions. Anthony William, who popularized these protocols, states that much of his health information comes from an entity he calls the “Spirit of Compassion.” I have no independent way to verify that claimed source, and I do not present it as established fact. The unverifiable nature of that source also does not, by itself, establish that every health claim he makes is true or false. Where individual claims can be evaluated through chemistry, physiology, clinical research, reproducibility, or observable outcomes, I evaluate them on those grounds.
The ingredients can still be foods I value, and the practices can remain meaningful parts of my personal routine, without that validating unestablished claims that the protocols remove toxic metals, kill pathogens, or produce special detoxification effects. That distinction—nutritional value, personal experience, and therapeutic mechanism are three different questions—is one of the biggest changes in how I evaluate wellness claims now.
What Deserves Its Own Article
Several of these topics deserve deeper treatment because the answer depends on the goal, formulation, dose, population, and evidence. Creatine and protein are no longer on my “no” list; both now have defined places in my foundation for reasons I can explain. Other products may remain experiments, situational tools, or things I decide not to use. Dedicated articles can examine those distinctions without turning this page into a constantly changing inventory.
Where This Leaves Me
None of this is a template for anyone else to copy directly. What I hope it demonstrates is the process more than the specific list — years of genuine trial, real cost, real disappointment, and eventually a set of tools I can actually explain the reasoning behind, rather than a stack I accumulated out of hope.
I hold all of this loosely, the way I try to hold most things: “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31, NASB). Stewardship of this body was never about getting the stack perfect. It’s about paying honest attention, adjusting when the evidence or my own experience says to, and not mistaking effort for wisdom.
See the Full Philosophy
Want to see how this fits my broader daily healing system? “My Daily Supplement Routine” lays out the full philosophy this piece builds on.
Read the Full Story
The evidence-ladder thinking running through this entire piece — how to evaluate a claim instead of just reacting to it — is the subject of “You Do You.”
Sources & Further Reading
- Copper, Lysyl Oxidase, and Extracellular Matrix Protein Cross-Linking. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
- Effects of Administering Berberine Alone or in Combination on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. 2024.
- Efficacy of Alpha-Lipoic Acid in the Management of Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
- The Effects of Magnesium L-Threonate (Magtein®) on Cognitive Performance and Sleep Quality in Adults: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial. Frontiers in Nutrition, 2025.
- Magnesium L-Threonate and the Blood-Brain Barrier. Dr. Taylor Wallace.
Disclaimer
Content on Natural Vitality Advocate is provided for educational and informational purposes and may include research-based discussion, personal experience, and opinion. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for individualized care from a qualified healthcare professional. Always discuss your specific health needs, diagnoses, medications, supplements, treatments, or major health decisions with an appropriate healthcare professional. See the full Disclaimer for additional information.