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Written by Morgan, @Team Amandean
There exists an ideal world in which those of us who take multiple supplements take each one separately, spaced and timed perfectly from all the other supplements -- in order to ensure that no vitamin or mineral we take could potentially have any interaction with any other. Take a supplement, wait a few hours, take another.
Unfortunately, this world doesn't exist for most people because, despite our best efforts to change the clock, there are only 24 hours in the day, plus we do have other things to do during the day other than take supplements. (There exists an even-more ideal world in which everyone eats such perfectly nourishing food, with the perfect quantities and quality of all vitamins and minerals we need for maximal health, so that supplements wouldn't even be needed -- but we do live in the era of super-processed food everywhere, so that perfection is hard to achieve, which is why supplements are essential, in my unbiased opinion.)
So this presents a challenge for those of us who, like me, are obsessed with making sure our supplements are as perfectly bioavailable as possible. What can we take together, and what can't we take together? How do we figure this out?
For example, to show the complexity of it -- you don't want to take Vitamin C at the same time as Iodine, because the Vitamin C will help the Iodine turn into Iodide (with a second "d"), so you won't even get the iodine you need -- so no, no, no! (But you knew that one already, right?). It's a waste to take a supplement if you take it with another supplement that just cancels it out. And this is fairly common, more common than you've realized.
So what to do? Before I dive into our recommended process for figuring out which vitamins and minerals to avoid taking together, I want to emphasize that at the end of this article there are a few important points to keep in mind about mixing supplements broadly--so don't skim, but read to the end!
The first step is this: any new supplement you plan to take, look it up on examine.com -- a website with which I'm personally obsessed and likely contribute about 3.5% of all their traffic. I'd look up any supplement you want to take there, to check for interactions. Additionally, the key word to know is "interactions" so if you Google the supplement name with the word "interactions" lots of rich information will come up for you. Or just download the PocketPharmacist app, highly recommended by pharmacists and laymen alike!
But luckily for you: I've already done a lot of this research for myself--I have far too much time on my hands!--on a variety of Amandean's products. So here is the second step, to review our key findings:
Liposomal Vitamin C goes well with most vitamins, but not with iodine, iron, selenium, B12, and copper.So space those out, with hours between your LVC and any of the above. But it's not as simple as that. Dr. Lam, for example, suggests that it is fine to have vitamin C with selenium, so long as it's during mealtime -- in fact, that LVC taken with selenium at mealtime improves the absorption of the selenium (so there is lots of other food to be absorbed as well. (1) This is a general pattern that may be true with a lot of other negative interactions as well. Note that "during mealtime" is not the same as "before the meal" - immediately before mealtime causes a problem, in a way that during mealtime doesn't!
For more details on the Vitamin C interactions,here is a fantastic list
Collagen is often associated with being calcium-rich due to the fact that people equate it with bone broth (and bones have calcium of course).However, Amandean's Grass-Fed Collagen Peptidesare actually made from the hides of pasture-raised cows and there is only 30mg of calcium per 100g of collagen.(2) So, whiIe you might find warnings against taking a calcium supplement alongside collagen peptides, you won't have to worry with our particular brand. Note, that this is true for both our Wild-Caught Marine Collagen from cod and our Grass-Fed Collagen.
Furthermore, however unlikely, it is possible to be allergic to collagen powder, or certain amino acids that are present in it. If you feel any stomach discomfort, you should stop taking it and consult with your physician.
Beef Gelatin is similiar to Collagen Peptides in source and is generally safe to combine with most other vitamins and supplements.
As a caution, there have been unconfirmed reports that suggest that gelatin taken with taurine may cause headaches, causing headaches. (3) -- but this is very anecdotal. So you may want to pay attention for a headache if you take beef gelatin with taurine, and then stop one of them if it does cause a headache.
Everyone's favorite master antioxidanthas very few negative interactions, which is yet another reason why its so easy to incorporate into your daily diet! It is so fantastic and goes well with almost everything. However, glutathione contains a substantial amount of sulphur, so you should not take glutathione along with other sulphur-containing supplements, unless you have received explicit medical approval to do so.
The sulphur caution that accompanies both Beef Gelatin and Liposomal Glutathione goes not only for sulphur directly but any supplement that contains sulphur, including these popular supplements: garlic, glutathione, glucosamine, N-acetylcysteine (NAC), alpha-lipoic acid (ALA), chondroitin, and Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). Since NAC and ALA are fairly popular supplements -- be careful and do your research before taking them in the same stack, at the same time as Glutathione.
Finally, what about our beloved Boswellia (AKA Indian Frankincense)? Good news: like Glutathione, Boswellia pairs well with most vitamins and minerals. Some people, however, have reported negative effects when combining Boswellia with anti-depressants. So, if you have been perscribed an anti-depressant, be extra careful before considering Bowsellia Serrata. Consult your Dr. first!
With all these in mind, there are a few important qualifications to keep in mind.
First, just because there is little evidence of bad interactions doesn't mean that there are none; it could mean, for example, that these interactions just aren't studied much. Take boswellia. There is much less Western-based medical studies conducted on Boswellia Serrata Extract than about Vitamin C, for example (since Boswellia has been used for thousands of years in India, but is new to the west) -- so it could just be that negative interactions haven't yet been found or documented in the same detail. The lack of evidence doesn't guarantee 100% safety.
Secondly, also remember supplementation should always be administered under the guidance of your doctor.And we here at Team Amandean have the authority to act as your personal physicians, although that sounds fun.
Third, I've only covered interactions from supplements that Amandean produces. So if you're curious about interactions with your St John's Wort, this isn't covered here.
Fourth and finally, the interactions documented above are only interactions between different vitamins and minerals. We're not taking into account prescribed medicine, anticoagulants/NSAIDS like Aspirin and Advil, and so forth. Today we’ve only discussed only different vitamins and minerals with each other.
(If we were to turn this article into a matrix of every possible combination of every medicine with every supplement... then this would be a 10,000 page article and you'd be bored after about the sixth word. I'm trying to avoid that there.)
What all this boils down to is the following: I've outlined here the key interactions between our premium supplements, and the other, most common, major supplements to take. Keep these in mind, but also, do your research, use examine.com, and above all, talk to your medical professional frequently about all of this. We want you to be healthy and live until 120, so we're not all lonely when we reach 120 ourselves!
