Joseph Radiach Speaks W/ Traci Scaletta: Supplements: Are They Working Out For You?

Joseph Radich: So, one of the biggest issues that we face here at R3  Health and any functional medicine practice essentially is, we have patients who come in with literally shopping carts and bins full of supplements and different products that they’ve accumulated over the years, and one of the things that we focus and spend a lot of time talking about is, well what supplement should I be taking? Is my body absorbing this supplement? Is it the right dosage for what my body needs?

Joseph Radich: That’s really why we’re bringing one of our colleagues and good friends, registered dietician Traci Scaletta, who’s here. She’s gonna talk to you guys and with us a little bit about what’s going on with this situation that we deal with all the time.

Joseph Radich: So tell me in your experience, a little bit about why it’s important to get checked.

Traci Scaletta: So, thanks Joe. It’s important to identify, like you said, intercellular micronutrient deficiencies. More often than not, people are going and getting their micronutrients tested through their primary care and those measurements are what we call, serum levels.

Traci Scaletta: Serum is everything outside the cell. Well, micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and amino acids don’t serve a purpose there in the serum. It’s giving you only what’s available for uptake into the cells. So if you have a healthy diet and you’re doing supplementation, those levels in the serum will probably show within normal range.

Traci Scaletta: Those micronutrients have to cross your cell membrane, get into our cells in order for us to utilize, metabolize, and function with those nutrients. It’s really important because everybody’s made up biochemically different and so you might need more selenium. I might need more CoQ10. So it’s important to test and not guess.

Traci Scaletta: If you are taking a lot of supplements, we need to identify, are you actually absorbing them and are you taking what your cells need?

Joseph Radich: I think that’s one of the biggest issues that we face and a lot of our patients struggle with also, ’cause a lot of times, patients do have absorption issues. They do have gut problems. They do have alkalinity problems and those are the things that are ultimately gonna effect, like you’re talking about, those intercellular absorptions and so it’s super important and I think one of the things that a lot of our patients don’t recognize is how important certain micronutrient and deficiencies are.

Joseph Radich: A lot of people don’t realize that a micro deficiency in biotin or folic acid or selenium can effect things like fatigue. Tracy has this fantastic wheel chart that we like to talk a lot about. But weight management problems, same thing. Testosterone in men. You know, a lot of people don’t think that certain micronutrients effect those things but they do.

Traci Scaletta: Absolutely and a lot of times they think fatigue, that’s probably my B12 level. Well that’s one nutrient that could be contributing to fatigue but a low folic acid, CoQ12, carnitine, are nutrients that could be causing that fatigue. So it’s just, bottom line, it’s important to identify exactly what each of your patients need and then that way you can do targeted supplementation and even IV nutrition based on exactly what their needs are.

Joseph Radich: And that’s so important to because even if you are, you’re in the dietician world, so everyone eats healthy or even if you do eat healthy, sometimes it’s not enough and that’s where supplementation is so important or even more advanced things like IV nutrition, is so important, because even with a healthy, clean lifestyle, sometimes our bodies don’t absorb things or we’re not getting enough of something.

Traci Scaletta: Well we know our soils depleted, so unfortunately, even if you eat a perfectly clean diet, you’re not gonna get the nutrients that you need, so it’s really important.

Joseph Radich: And so that’s one of the reasons that one of the things we specialize here in is helping people take a much more in depth, comprehensive look at where their body is and how their bodies aging and the testing that Tracy and we use here is the best way to do that with the intercellular micronutrient testing.

Joseph Radich: So come in. Come get some information. Come talk to us. We want to help you be the best you, you can be and this is just step one.