Andrew Huberman· PhD
although I will talk about some of the safety concerns in just a few minutes now I want to acknowledge that as soon as we talk about vitamin mineral supplements the Skeptics immediately raise their hands and say well all that vitamin and mineral supplements do is give you very expensive urine and there the Skeptics are referring to the fact the reality that when you ingest high levels of water-soluble vitamins so think vitamin C and some of the other vitamins that indeed you will excrete them in your urine however it's also the case that many people are not getting enough of the water-soluble vitamins from their foods and it's also the case that many people are and it's also the case that ingesting higher than needed amounts of most water-soluble vitamins provided those levels aren't exceedingly High is or at least we should say can be safe and again this is provided that the levels that they're ingesting are not exceedingly high so the typical vitamin mineral supplement is indeed going to cover any gaps or deficiencies that might arise in the water-soluble vitamins from your food intake but the reality is that most people are getting enough of the water-soluble vitamins from their food if they are paying attention to a couple of things and those things are very simple to lay out regardless of whether or not you're a vegan a vegetarian a more traditional omnivore eating from both animal-based and plant-based sources grains Etc or even if you're in the pure carnivore or strict I guess it's called The Lion diet where it's just meat and salt regardless of what type of nutrition you follow you will get vitamins and minerals but you'll get more or fewer of them depending on the nutritional program you follow and of course depending on how often and how much you eat that's just sort of obvious most people who take a vitamin mineral supplement will indeed excrete a lot of the water-soluble vitamins they will retain the fat soluble vitamins and there again the Skeptics will raise their hands and say you do not want to take high levels of fat soluble vitamins because they will be stored in your system potentially to levels that are dangerous again provided that vitamin mineral supplements are not taken in excess it's unlikely that you're going to have such a buildup of the fat soluble vitamins in your system that they're going to be a problem so that raises a very specific question that you