The Five Supplements That (Probably) Work

The supplement pills that I recommend as a skeptic of supplements.

Pictured: Probably ineffective. Photo by Supliful - Supplements On Demand on Unsplash

If you’ve been reading my writing for a while, you’ll probably know that I do not think that supplements are worth the money we spend on them. As a general rule, the sort of supplement pill that you can buy in a supermarket is either disproven or has so little evidence supporting it that it’s not worth taking.

And yes, this goes for most of the popular pills that people take. Multivitamins are mostly a waste of time. Vitamin D supplements—even for people who have somewhat low vitamin D levels—probably don’t make you healthier. The plethora of various different plants that we’ve tried to pack into supplement pills mostly do nothing, aside from a handful that can be actively harmful.

But there are a few things that I recommend people consider. I don’t take any of these myself, but they are proven effective. Here are the five supplements that I have found in my decade-long search that have good evidence supporting them.