Supplements I Love, Supplements I Love But Not As Much

[DISCLOSURE: I am madly in love with a man who used to make supplements for AOR. He tells me what supplements to take. Some of them are things he made.]

It occurred to me this morning that now that I've gotten used to my supplement routine, I've started to develop attachments to some of them, and to like others distinctly less. This seems silly, so I spent a moment with my supplements this morning deconstructing my feelings towards each of them.

First: Strontium Support, AOR, MR made it. I love this one. Even though the capsule is fairly big, I am attached to this one because I read MR's article about it while we were in the airport waiting for Aubrey de Grey to arrive in Calgary. It's a bone building pill, and that seems good, but mostly I like it because I really liked MR's article and I have this warm fuzzy memory of reading it while MR sat next to me reading one of Aubrey's articles.

Creatine: a not particularly good tasting powder that I have to take because I'm a vegetarian mostly. MR says we have to take it with a grape juice (or in my case cranberry grape) chaser so that it absorbs into the muscles with a little sugar. I like this one a lot when I'm at MR's cause he measures it out for me and kinda hovers over me while I take it, no doubt because it's amusing to watch me make a face when I taste the icky stuff. But I don't really like it when I'm at my own house because it takes yucky and it makes me miss MR.

After those dissolve for an hour, I eat breakfast, and here's what I take with breakfast:

I-3-C: This is a pill that fights the early stages of cervical cancer. MR made it for AOR after he read this amazing study where it actually reveresed cervical dysplasia. You can read about it here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=10926790

or just check this out:

"Thirty patients with biopsy proven CIN II-III [cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grades II to II, on a III-point scale] were randomized to receive placebo or 200, or 400 mg/day I-3-C administered orally for 12 weeks. ... RESULTS: None (0 of 10) of the patients in the placebo group had complete regression of CIN. In contrast 4 of 8 patients in the 200 mg/day arm and 4 of 9 patients in the 400 mg/day arm had complete regression based on their 12-week biopsy."

Now that's big news out there for women who've had a bad pap smear and totally freaked out thinking we're going to get cervical cancer. Which is like everyone. So of course I love this supplement and of course I am extremely proud that I know the person who made it.

Essential Mix: 1 teaspoon. I love Essential Mix, my mom hates it, VLC loves it. I gave VLC an autographed carton (yes, I make MR autograph some, though not all, of the supplements he made. After all the willpower it took to *not* ask him to autograph RANT: Moderate CR, at the conference, even though I was carrying it around the entire time, I decided that from now on I'm just going to be a geeky fangirl and he doesn't seem to mind) as a present when I got back from Calgary, and she mixes hers into a yogurt and fruit smoothie.

Taurine: I take this on every other day, and it's in the category of "Vegetarian supplements"
My memory of taurine before I met MR was that it's what cats have to have, and why they can't be vegans. Not that I ever tried to make my cats be vegans -- they aren't even CR'd (obviously as Kieffer weighs 20 pounds and is a giant housecat, not a CR'd bobcat.) I can't get all that attached to taurine. I mean, it's fine, but I don't *love* it the way I love I3C, strontium and Essential Mix.

Between breakfast and lunch:
1 Carnosine
1 Aceyl-L-Carnitine

I don't know what these guys do. My main association with them is that it's hard to remember to take them, as I have to have them at least one hour after breakfast and one half hour before lunch. Even in Calgary MR kept forgetting to give them to me.

Lunch:
1 zinc. Yeah, zinc and me, we go way back. If you missed the "it's not Advil, it's zinc" issue, I suggest you go back and read it. No further comment, except that I keep taking zinc, even though it is obviously personally out to get me, because MR has a terrible story about zinc deficiency.

1 Menatetrenome/Peak K2
This is another bone thing, and I love it because it's a tiny little yellow pill and very cute. It also sounds like metronome, that thing I had when I took piano lessons, and I think that's funny. I also like anything with Vitamin K in it.

1 Choline + Inositol
I have no idea what this does, but I do feel a sense of accomplishment when I take it.

Dinner:
I3C Love it
1 teaspoon Essential Mix Love it
1 Calcium Chewy
I take those chewy chocolatey calcium things, and they're so good. It's like having dessert. They also take along time to eat.
1000 IU vitamin D on alternate days (I am looking at MR's note that says "arrange your pillboxes" and thinking that I haven't told him that I'm still taking everything straight from the bottle unless I'm on a trip, in which case I've just been putting what I need into zip lock bags. He really thinks I should get pillboxes. Maybe I will, but the system of taking them from the bottles seems to eliminate a step, and since I take so few, it's not a hassle. And I get to revisit all the pretty labels.)

That's my day. I'm getting pretty good at taking all of them, and I have no trouble whatsoever remembering if it's an alternate day.

Now don't go taking exactly what I'm taking, because you're not me! MR figured out what I should be taking based on an analysis of my diet, my lifestyle, and my personal risk factors.