Supplements,
graded honestly.

The third supplement with genuinely strong ergogenic evidence, and it only helps in a narrow window: efforts lasting one to four minutes.

3.2-6.4 g/day

The most-used stimulant on earth, and one of the few supplements with strong evidence for both cognitive and physical performance.

100-400 mg

The most researched supplement in sports nutrition: reliable strength and lean-mass gains, with an emerging case for the brain.

3-5 g/day

The least glamorous entry here and one of the best evidenced: it lowers LDL, steadies blood glucose, and fixes both kinds of bowel problem.

5-15 g/day

Not a supplement so much as convenient food: it works because it is protein, and most people are short on protein.

20-40 g per serving, to fill the gap to your daily target

The best-supported adaptogen for stress and sleep — with trial durations, and a rare-but-real liver caveat, worth knowing about.

300-600 mg/day of root extract (e.g. KSM-66, 5% withanolides)

An Ayurvedic herb with real randomized-trial support for memory — if you can wait the 8-12 weeks it takes to work.

300-450 mg/day standardized to ~55% bacosides

One of the few endurance aids that genuinely works — and it works through a bacterial step in your mouth that mouthwash can abolish.

6.5-13 mmol nitrate (roughly 400-800 mg), typically one concentrated shot

Can lower blood glucose and lipids, but evidence is less reliable than for prescription treatment and interactions are substantial.

1,000-1,500 mg/day, taken as 500 mg two or three times daily

A choline source that doubles as a membrane-repair substrate, with respectable trial support for attention and memory.

250-500 mg

The amino acid in green tea that takes the edge off stress — and off caffeine — without sedation.

100-400 mg

A dopamine precursor that defends cognition during acute stress — cold, noise, sleep loss — and does little on an ordinary day.

500-2000 mg

An essential mineral that roughly half of adults under-consume, sold in forms that differ enormously in whether they are absorbed or just laxative.

200-400 mg elemental magnesium/day

Not a sleeping pill — a clock signal. Used correctly it shifts your circadian timing; used like a sedative it mostly disappoints.

0.5-5 mg; 0.5-1 mg is often as effective as more

EPA and DHA can lower triglycerides and may support cardiovascular health — with effect sizes more modest than the marketing.

1-2 g/day combined EPA+DHA

Essential, easy to become deficient in if you avoid animal foods or are over fifty, and completely useless as an energy booster if you are not.

250-1,000 mcg/day oral; deficiency correction and injections are a medical decision

Correcting a real deficiency matters. Topping up someone who is already replete has failed trial after expensive trial.

1,000-2,000 IU/day (25-50 mcg) for maintenance; deficiency correction needs more and a blood test

Shortens colds if you start within a day and use lozenges — and does approximately nothing for testosterone unless you were deficient.

15-30 mg/day for maintenance; cold lozenges use a separate short-term protocol

The best-absorbed choline source, with real evidence in dementia, thinner evidence in healthy people, and an unresolved stroke-risk signal.

300-600 mg/day; dementia trials used 1,200 mg

A real mitochondrial cofactor with limited clinical uses — heart failure and migraine prevention — and very little to offer healthy people.

100-300 mg/day

A poor protein source with a surprisingly decent case for tendons, joints, and skin — the opposite of how it is usually sold.

10-15 g/day; 5-15 g with vitamin C an hour pre-loading for tendon work

Thousands of papers, real joint-pain results, and a molecule that chemists consider a textbook false lead — all three are true at once.

500-1,500 mg/day of curcuminoids in an enhanced-absorption formulation

Three grams before bed, tastes faintly sweet, costs almost nothing, and has a plausible mechanism for better sleep quality — on a thin trial base.

3 g before bed

Drinking green tea is a good idea. Concentrating it into a high-dose capsule is where the liver injury reports start.

250-500 mg/day of catechins — and drinking the tea is the safer route

Genuinely useful for the untrained, the injured, and the elderly — and close to useless for the trained lifter it is marketed to.

3 g/day

The amino acid that replaced arginine in pre-workouts, for the good reason that arginine never survived digestion.

6-8 g citrulline malate, or 3-6 g pure L-citrulline

A culinary mushroom with a fascinating nerve-growth mechanism — and human evidence that has not yet caught up to its popularity.

500-3000 mg/day of fruiting-body extract

The magnesium form engineered to reach the brain. The animal data is striking; the human evidence is still early.

1.5-2 g/day magnesium L-threonate (~144 mg elemental)

Cheap insurance against gaps you probably do not have — with one recent, genuinely interesting exception for memory in older adults.

A hospital antidote with a genuine psychiatric research literature behind it — and a supplement aisle full of claims that literature does not support.

600-1,800 mg/day; psychiatric trials typically used 2,400 mg

They reliably raise NAD+ in humans. Whether raising NAD+ does anything you would notice is the question nobody has answered.

250-1,000 mg/day (NR trials clustered at 300-1,000 mg; NMN at 250-500 mg)

Two thousand years of use, a Cochrane review that found no convincing evidence, and a handful of decent acute studies in between.

200-400 mg/day of extract standardised to 4-7% ginsenosides

A membrane phospholipid with decent aging-memory data — much of it from a bovine-derived form nobody sells anymore.

100 mg three times daily (300 mg/day) in the memory trials

Specific strains treat specific conditions with real evidence. "Probiotics for gut health" as a general proposition is close to meaningless.

An adaptogen with real trials behind its anti-fatigue claim — and a research base that thins out fast beyond it.

200-600 mg/day standardized to ~3% rosavins, 1% salidroside

A recovery aid with a real anti-inflammatory effect — which is exactly why you should not take it every day.

30 ml concentrate twice daily, or the equivalent juice serving used by the product or trial

A 2023 Science paper made it the longevity molecule of the year, on the strength of mice — the human evidence is a decade behind the enthusiasm.

1-6 g/day; performance trials mostly used 1-3 g

The testosterone booster with the least bad evidence in a category defined by bad evidence — which is a lower bar than it sounds.

200-400 mg/day of a water-based extract

The most-used herbal sleep aid in the world, resting on a trial literature so heterogeneous that meta-analyses cannot agree on whether it works.

300-600 mg of root extract

The most popular supplement on this list with the weakest case: if you eat enough protein, BCAAs are an expensive way to buy three amino acids you already have.

5-10 g if used at all — but a complete protein at the same dose outperforms it

The best-selling brain herb in history — and the one whose biggest, best trials came back empty.

120-240 mg/day of EGb 761 standardized extract

The cautionary tale of the longevity field: a beautiful hypothesis, a retracted foundation, and a trial that found it made exercise work worse.