Most of the minerals, vitamins and other supplements contain too low doses, the wrong forms (e.g. magnesium oxide instead of magnesium malate), or wrong combinations (e.g. calcium with iron, or copper with zinc, which inhibit each other's absorption).
We explain more about the best supplements to take here:
- THE 11 BEST FOOD SUPPLEMENTS TO TAKE, EVEN WHEN YOU “EAT HEALTHY”
- THE 13 BEST ANTI-AGING SUPPLEMENTS, SCIENCE-BASED
- ARE SUPPLEMENTS NECESSARY?
Given we often get the question from customers which multivitamin they could combine with NOVOS, we recommend the following (note: all brands mentioned below are not sponsored nor do we have any affiliations with these brands):
Given most multivitamins contain too little of important "bulk" vitamins and minerals and other micronutrients, we advise to take these separately.
With "bulk" micronutrients we mean substances you often need doses of that are much higher than in a standard multivitamin.
Examples of "bulk micronutrients" are calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, iodine (doses should ideally be considerably higher than 100 ug (microgram) per day, and should contain iodine and iodide, for example in droplet form), and a sufficiently highly-dosed vitamin B complex (which contains ideally a few times the RDA of each B vitamin).
One can often find these in CVS (US), Booths (UK) or similar stores, or order them online. We like brands such as Jarrow, Douglas Labs, Doctor's Best, and NOW Foods.
One can combine these with a standard multivitamin supplement that delivers micronutrients of which small amounts are needed, like iron, manganese, borium, etc. The brands we mentioned earlier (e.g. Jarrow, Douglas Labs, etc.) often offer these multivitamins, as do other brands like Rituals or One A Day.
Of course, these multivitamins also contain bulk micronutrients, like magnesium, calcium, iodine etc., but mostly in doses that are too low, so you can take these individual bulk supplements on top of a standard multivitamin supplement.
Often, multivitamins don't contain omega-3 fatty acids, phospholipids and choline. For omega-3 fatty acids, we recommend taking high-quality, low TOTOX omega-3s, like Omega 3 Innovations (https://omega3innovations.com/blog/making-sense-of-fish-oil-oxidation-values/) or Nordic Naturals.
For phosphatidylcholine and/or phosphatidylserine, a good brand is Jarrow.
For choline, we recommend taking choline chloride instead of choline bitartrate.
We explain more about the how and why of these ingredients here:
https://novoslabs.com/best-food-supplements-to-take-even-when-you-eat-healthy/