Andy Galpin's Sources

“Creatine has been shown to reduce cortical damage following a TBI by anywhere between 35 to 50%.”

“Most of the data on creatine monohydrate for brain injuries typically uses dosages of about 20 grams per day.”

“I think 5 to 10 grams per day is probably plenty for most people as a prophylactic. Seven days or so prior to a high-risk situation, we're going to up that dose to 20 to 30 grams.”

“The biggest risk is GI distress. Some people have gas or bloating or stomach cramps at even five grams a day.”

“It helps dramatically with arterial pliability and compliance. Omega-3s really help the arteries become more pliable and open and close more effectively.”

“The dosage for brain related injuries is somewhere between 2 to 4 grams per day.”

“The only adverse issue you're going to typically have here is potentially some loose stool.”

“I personally will be totally honest, I take a lot more than four grams for other benefits.”

“This has a handful of functions. First, it's helpful in preserving that blood brain barrier because it wards off membrane breakdown.”

“You probably want to take something like 500 milligrams per day as a daily dosage prophylactically. However, if you've had a direct head injury, this might be the time to ramp up to 1 to 2 grams.”

“It probably inhibits receptors that are directly targets of anti-depressants as well and is a strong contributor to that brain excitotoxicity after injury.”

“The dosages we described are 400 milligrams per day.”

“I personally feel no effect at all, but most people do. I still then take my magnesium at night just because, just in case.”

“The obvious risks associated with magnesium are the GI distress.”

“My recommendation is that overconsumption is the problem. Do not overconsume caffeine if you've experienced a brain injury.”

“Many micronutrients, B12 specifically here, are very, very poorly measured in blood. Really unreliable markers.”

“We know B12 matters a ton for energy production and performance, but we just simply can't pull it out of your blood and know your status.”

“Zinc is involved in a lot of things that you would care about like protein synthesis, cell function, glucose regulation, endocrine function, immunity, wound healing, and so on and so forth.”

“We know that this thing is depleted about 20% faster in exercisers than non, so you really do want to pay attention to it.”

“High caffeine and low sodium and even low selenium further reduce magnesium.”

“High caffeine and low sodium and even low selenium further reduce magnesium.”

“The serum measure is not at all a reflection of your intracellular status. Most of your B12 is in your cells, not in your serum.”

“Most people eat around one to two grams of potassium a day where the need is probably more like five to six grams. It is a significantly underconsumed nutrient.”

“Creatinine is highly associated with muscle mass and creatine intake. It is not crazy to see people above 1.35 milligrams per deciliter here, especially people with lots of muscle and those that lift weights and or take creatine.”

“Albumin and vitamin D tend to decrease in inflammation.”

“In fatigue you might look at markers like your cortisol to DHEA ratio... however you don't want to go take more of those supplements.”

“DHA is critical for everything from neurological function to injury risk, metabolic rate, and prevention of neurodegeneration. EPA is mainly involved in vascular function, inflammation, oxygen delivery, and nutrient delivery to the brain.”

“Omega-3s are by far the most studied regarding traumatic brain injury. There are dozens and dozens of studies, systematic reviews, and randomized control trials on Omega-3s and brain-related injuries.”

“It helps dramatically with what's called arterial pliability and compliance. Omega-3s really help the arteries become more pliable and open and close more effectively.”

“Higher omega-3 intake is associated with a bigger hippocampal volume, which is the area mainly responsible for learning and memory.”

“We see a significant increase in hippocampal volume at the dosage of about 2.2 grams per day.”

“One study looked at a combination of 900 milligrams of EPA plus 260 milligrams of DHA, and that resulted in greater accuracy and speed of recall tasks.”

“The dosage for brain-related injuries is somewhere between 2 to 4 grams per day.”

“The only adverse issue you're going to typically have here is potentially some loose stool if you consume a bunch of oil.”

“I personally will be totally honest, I take a lot more than four grams for other benefits.”

“I think it's very fair to say two grams a day or so is the effective dose and more than that may not give you additional benefit.”

“You as a preventative strategy should look at your omega-3 index and identify whether you have problems. Optimal is like 8 to 10, maybe even 12 percent.”

“Creatine monohydrate often improves cognitive function in both brain injury and normal healthy aging folks. It is effective and has been shown in many models and many studies across many laboratories.”

“One of the things that's been shown with creatine is it is really effective for that second impact syndrome. Repeated head blows cause more damage if the creatine is depleted prior to the additional impacts.”

“There are two randomized control trials that found five grams of creatine per day, added in addition to anti-depressant treatments, improved depressive symptoms.”

“Creatine has been shown to reduce cortical damage following a TBI by anywhere between 35 to 50 percent. It's thought to prevent some of that mitochondrial dysfunction and help maintain membrane health.”

“In this particular paper on kids with severe TBIs, they gave them 0.4 grams per kilogram of body weight within 4 hours post-injury and continued for 6 months.”

“Most of the data on creatine monohydrate for brain injuries typically uses dosages of about 20 grams per day. This is four times the typical dose you'll see for performance benefits.”

“A recent paper suggested that a very high dose of 0.35 grams per kilogram of body weight was enough to attenuate the drop in cognitive performance after sleep deprivation.”

“I think 5 to 10 grams per day is probably plenty for most people as a prophylactic, kind of an ongoing option to be at that number.”

“For my athletes, seven days or so prior to a high-risk situation or competition, we're going to up that dose to 20 to 30 grams for those seven days.”

“The biggest risk is GI distress. Some people have gas, bloating, or stomach cramps at even 5 grams a day, so taking them to 20 or 30 may cause serious issues.”

“All of muscle requires calcium to contract. Your skeletal muscle has to have it, your heart has to have it. It is a critical component to high quality, fast, and successful muscle contractions.”

“If your intake or absorption of calcium is low, your body will recognize this and it'll start pulling it out of bone. This will actually lead to a rise or an increase in calcium concentrations in your blood.”

“If you don't have enough vitamin D, you'll get about a quarter of the calcium absorption through your gut that you would if vitamin D is sufficient.”

“Bone mineral density in the spine specifically and femoral neck increased significantly with collagen intake. You're talking about like 4 to 7% increases in bone mineral density over a 12-month span.”

“Copious amounts, excessive amounts of those substances, particularly caffeine in kids, is not good for bone health.”

“As long as you're kind of hitting medium numbers, something like 800 to 1,000 milligrams of calcium per day, you tend to be fine. If you're getting it in food, you're okay, you don't need it.”

“It may enhance bone health by improving calcium absorption, IGF-1, and by increasing lean body mass itself.”

“You can generally expect something between like a 3 to 11% increase in resting metabolic rate that's going to last somewhere between an hour to three hours.”

“Green tea or green tea extract has a similar effect of caffeine but in the four to 5% range for about the same length and duration.”

“One thing that has been documented pretty consistently with caffeine, nicotine, and green tea is they all also affect satiety so they're appetite suppressants.”

“Caffeine, GTE, and niacin combined with Garcinia Cambogia... throw all those things together and you might see a 15% or greater increase in RMR.”

“If you just increase fat burning and then you don't use the fat, that fat will get stored right back again and your net result will go nowhere.”

“They gave them three grams per day of EPA and DHA for a total of 12 weeks. You saw a chronic elevation in resting metabolic rate that had a functional and practical outcome of a 4% in lean mass.”

“They saw an increase in lean mass by about 4% by simply taking three grams per day of fish oil.”

“Most of the research here has been done on things like Chili Peppers, ginger, red peppers, and even turmeric. These will increase your resting metabolic rates, they'll increase your thermal effective food and they'll actually oftentimes lower energy intake.”

“You would have to probably eat ounces or pounds of Ginger or turmeric for this to have a real practical output on you.”

“There is a lot of data on caffeine. You can generally expect something between like a 3 to 11% increase in resting metabolic rate that's going to last somewhere between an hour to three hours.”

“Green tea or green tea extract (GTE) has a similar effect to caffeine but in the four to five percent range. One thing that has been documented pretty consistently is they also affect satiety, so they're appetite suppressants.”

“Others have been done on caffeine, GTE, and niacin combined with Garcinia Cambogia. You throw all those things together and you might see a 15% or greater increase in RMR.”

“They gave them three grams per day of EPA and DHA for a total of 12 weeks.”

“By simply taking three grams per day of fish oil, you saw a chronic elevation in resting metabolic rate that had a functional and practical outcome of a 4% increase in lean mass compared to olive oil.”

“It is involved in well over 600 reactions in your body from cell signaling, vascular function, ATP production, protein synthesis, neuroplasticity, learning, and memory.”

“One study looked at acute TBIs in kids and saw a significant reduction in postconcussion severity scores 48 hours after the injury when they used 400 mg of magnesium twice per day.”

“The dosages we described one more time, 400 milligrams per day. The timing doesn't matter, you'll want to have some in there pre as well as post injury.”

“I still then take my magnesium at night just because, just in case.”

“The obvious risks associated with magnesium are the GI distress. Bisglycinate, malate, and threonate are generally pretty well handled.”

“First and foremost, what we're talking about here mostly are acute benefits. Take caffeine, take a stimulant, you're going to change sympathetic drive, and you all know that.”

“Closest thing I found was there was actually several review articles and meta analyses on omega-3s. Benefit doesn't seem to be huge, but there's some indication that there's some help here.”

“In fact, if you look at other things like ashwagandha, very similar types of research. It helps you not be as responsive to a stressful stimuli. That is the true benefit.”

“A final one that I thought worthy of talking about was actually a review article on human studies that found an association between low vitamin D and low HRV.”

“A review article on human studies found an association between low B12 and low HRV.”

“Some of you may have explored and use carnitine as a supplement. That's the rate limiting step for fat transport into the mitochondria.”

“We know very effectively that sodium bicarbonate and other forms of supplementation that reduce acid buildup in tissue are quite effective.”

“Beta alanine supplementation increases carnosine concentrations in muscle tissue and effectively acts as an acid buffer.”

“The problem with sodium bicarbonate is sometimes it can create GI distress and some other issues.”