Supplements 201: A Smarter Approach for Health Coaches

On Wednesday, September 16th, FMCA hosted a special Ask the Expert webinar featuring Dr. Deanna Minich, PhD, nutrition scientist, educator, and internationally recognized expert in nutrition and lifestyle medicine. Hosted by Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum, this conversation offers a practical, systems-based framework for understanding where supplements fit within a food-first approach to health and how health coaches can discuss them responsibly.

In this conversation, Dr. Minich breaks down major supplement categories, from foundational and targeted nutrients to botanicals and specialty compounds, while exploring what influences quality, safety, and effectiveness. You’ll learn why factors such as form, dose, delivery system, purity, packaging, and manufacturing standards matter, along with important considerations such as drug–nutrient interactions, cumulative dosing, health conditions, and life stage needs. Most importantly, you’ll gain practical guidance for navigating supplement conversations within the health coach scope of practice, including when to support a practitioner’s recommendations and when to refer out.

In this webinar replay, you will learn:

• How supplements fit within a systems-based, food-first approach to health
• The key differences among foundational nutrients, targeted nutrients, botanicals, and specialty compounds
• What influences supplement quality, safety, and effectiveness
• Key safety considerations, including interactions, health conditions, life stages, and cumulative dosing
• How to navigate supplement conversations confidently within the health coach scope of practice
• When to support practitioner recommendations and when to refer out

Watch the Replay

Supplements 201: A Smarter Approach for Health Coaches, With Dr. Deanna Minich:

Transcript

Dr. Sandi: Without further ado, I am going to turn it over to Deanna, who is somebody I have known and loved for so many years. And I first heard her lecture, I was at IFM studying, and I was just blown away by her. And she has been a supporter of FMCA since the beginning, a key faculty member. And she truly embodies mind, body, spirit in all ways. And this talk today on supplements, again, keep in mind that we’re never just divorcing…it’s not just supplements, but we are always talking about that whole person, including mind and spirit. So, take it away, Deanna, or I should say Dr. Minich.

Deanna: Well, thank you so much. And you know, I feel the same about you, Sandi, in terms of our connection over the years. And I fully support everything that you’ve been doing through the FMCA. It’s a wonderful organization. So many of the coaches that I’ve met have been an inspiration. And I continue to get the message out about health coaches and how many practitioner teams need them. Goodness, you know, it’s such a wonderful, I would say, advocacy to bring forward to any individual. So, today, we’re…

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. Thank you. So, I’m going to go off camera.

Deanna: Okay. Wonderful. So, I do have a presentation that will get us started and allow for us to come up with some questions, because I’m assuming that some of you have decided to come to this webinar because you want to get questions answered around dietary supplements. So, I did do a webinar on supplements some months ago, and this is a follow-up to that. Because when I was done giving that webinar, I realized, oh, my goodness, each of these different slides, it’s almost like there’s a little rabbit hole behind certain ones of them where we could really go deep. And then I was suggesting to the FMCA team that perhaps we have a conversation with the coaches about what they would like to know. And I have been in the supplement industry, just to give you some context, since 2003.

In 2003, I joined Metagenics, and I was on the team that was formulating supplements. I was on the research team of Dr. Jeffrey Bland. So, I was… It was actually such a dream job to be in the throes of understanding dietary supplements because, as a PhD nutritionist, I was not taught about supplements in my academic training. So, being at Metagenics within the team of Dr. Bland was the perfect way for me to get educated on supplements.

And so, what I’m sharing with you is my knowledge. This is not, I would say, book knowledge in the way of a set defined course. It’s based on my experience. It’s based on what I know about regulations, which is not perfect. You know, I’ve never been in the place of being on the regulatory side. I’ve always been on the research side and the clinical side. So, even so, when I was at Metagenics, we would test out a little of many of these different formulas in kind of a smaller way within what’s called a functional medicine research center. So, we would test a lot of the supplements in conjunction with nutrition and lifestyle approaches. So, not only was I helping to formulate and research, but also clinically apply them.

So, I think what we’ll do is I’m just going to… And Sandi, you guide me here. But I have some starter slides. And so, I’ll just go through some things for about 20 minutes. And hopefully, this will get your neurons firing, and you can start to put in questions like Sandi was mentioning in the Q&A section. And then we can start to go into your specific questions because that’s why you’re here. And it’s amazing to see all of the interest in this topic, by the way.

All right. As Sandi mentioned, this is educational material. And as I mentioned, I have been in the dietary supplement industry for, my goodness, like, decades. Twenty-three years to be exact. All right.

Well, I think that, as coaches, one of the things that you see is that supplements are something that is just a part of people’s lives today. I even think about it for myself. I’ve had gatherings at my home, and it’s interesting because one of the comments I get from people when they come into my kitchen is, oh, my goodness, Deanna, you’re taking all of these supplements? And I say, no, no, no. I have all of these supplements as kind of like a mini pharmacy, if you will, for when I need them, like if I need more immune support or these are more my every days.

But what I tended to see in clinical practice was that so many people would come in with garbage bags or even brown paper bags when I would ask them about what are you taking, what are the supplements that you’re taking. And what’s really interesting to me, and I’m curious about your thoughts on this, but many people don’t actually know why they are taking certain supplements. So, I think one of the first things to start with is the why. And this is what I think about with Simon Sinek, with always asking the why, bringing your clients back to the why. And then once they give you an answer, then ask them why again. Because sometimes they don’t really know that reason. It was just, oh, well, my practitioner put me on this. Do you know why? Well, let me think about that. I think it was because I had something in one of my labs. Okay. Well, why? What was that?

So, I think that this is really important to do an inventory of what people are taking because one of the things for you to be thinking about — and you’re gonna see this in one of my slides, but let me just shortcut to it — is science, quality, and safety. I want you to remember those three things. If there’s nothing else that you leave with from this one-hour discussion about supplements, I want you to always come back to, is there science on that supplement? Is there safety or quality information available? Those two things are also really essential. And many times, you have to go back to the company to figure out their quality practices and also to look at, is there safety data?

But separate from the product bringing its own safety issues, also thinking about, well, I’ve got this client, and they’re on medications, and they’re on all these supplements. So, how do all of these things play together? And you, as a health coach, don’t need to be an expert in that. That is something as a potential discussion point for you to bring up with your client to have a conversation with their healthcare practitioner about. Because so many health practitioners are just…they hit the ground running when they’re in that therapeutic consult, and they don’t have the time to actually go through all of the different supplements.

So, I’ve had clients before where they’ll bring to me not just the physical supplements or show me the supplements, like if I’m doing a virtual consult. Sometimes they’ll take a picture of the back so I can actually see what they’re taking, because just saying Omega-3 fatty acids doesn’t mean anything. I need to see what is in that supplement. And then furthermore, are they actually taking them? How often? Is it regular? Lots of different whys here and what and how to have a conversation about.

All right. So, I’m gonna get a little disruptive with some of the different aspects to bring up because these are the things that are talked about on social media. And many of your clients are becoming informed through social media, AI. They are questioning what healthcare practitioners are telling them. And so, one of the things that I have seen out there in the, I would say, overall functional medicine space, functional nutrition space, is, well, goodness, aren’t you just creating expensive urine by taking a multivitamin? Is there really any benefit? So, that speaks again to the science question. Is there science? Is there anything to be taking a supplement, or are we just creating this “expensive urine” because everything just runs through us anyway?

And so, what I think is important to acknowledge here is that you want to understand why that person is taking this supplement, and of course, ultimately, potentially, you’ll have some type of urinary metabolite that comes through by way of that supplement. So, I feel like this is just kind of a quick off-the-cuff response that people have to supplements, and it seems like there are camps of people as it relates to supplements.

Some people are very pro-supplementation, almost a little bit too much, like for example, some biohackers talking about, oh, I take 150 supplements in the morning or I’m taking two handfuls of supplements. And many times when I’m traveling, I’m traveling with colleagues, I’ll notice. And I have one colleague who just will take a handful and just put them in her mouth and take them down. And I’m thinking, how do all of those things start to interact? And aren’t you supposed to take some of those with a meal to absorb them better?

So, I think that, on one side, there is this heavy pro side of I need more supplements. They are like these shiny objects. And then I think, across that spectrum, now, we move to the other side, all the way to the other side, which is no supplements whatsoever. Supplements are toxic. Supplements can lead to liver issues. Supplements can lead to expensive urine. And I don’t need supplements because I eat a really complete diet. I eat nutrient-dense foods, and I don’t need anything.

So, I think that there are those two polar opposites, and then I think you have everything in between. And most likely, all of you are seeing everybody in between. And perhaps there are some indications where some people are opposed, but probably not too many if they’re coming to a functional medicine trained coach.

The other thing that people get into is, well, aren’t supplements unregulated? The short answer to that is supplements are regulated. It’s just how they are regulated. And typically, what is…the tip-off here for the lack of regulation typically is around the claims that the product is making. Sometimes that is the unregulated piece, but there is a whole DSHEA act, this dietary supplement health act that came out in the late ’90s that is really about regulation of supplements. So, you have old dietary ingredients, so, kind of established ingredients that can go into supplements. And if there are brand new actives that haven’t been in a supplement before, sometimes you need to have what’s called a new dietary ingredient application.

So, there is a degree of regulation within supplements. But now, the question is, are all manufacturers of supplements created equal? Again, we have this spectrum. I always come back to the spectrum, right? You have some companies that are hitting on all cylinders of quality, safety, testing lots, looking at shelf life, and really having third-party verification. Then you might have all the way over on this other side where there is a company that does not have best practices.

So, I think where supplements may get a negative reputation is when you have a company…because you can have many different companies in the supplement space, but not all of them have certified good manufacturing practices. Not all of them are doing third-party testing. Not all of them are testing batches, lots. They’re not testing for label claim. They’re not doing stability testing. There is even a test which is called DT, dissolution time. So, basically looking at a tablet and how long it takes to dissolve in a certain liquid that would mimic stomach acid. So, needing a certain dissolution time if you are making certain claims or you have certain actives.

Now, again, I’m not always the quality aspect, and on that side, there are people who can speak to that better. But I know that there are layers upon layers of tests, and there are certain certifications that companies can have that would let you know that they are in obeyance of these regulatory frameworks.

So, I think that this is what you have to be thinking about is looking at the quality of the company. And that’s why, typically, one of the things that I have said in the industry and why I have chosen in the past to work with a company like Metagenics…and I’m not slanting this to Metagenics. I no longer work with them. But having a company that sells to healthcare practitioners, typically, many of them operate in a very similar way where they have good clinical and manufacturing practices, or maybe not always the clinical side of things where they haven’t tested the supplement, but they go through good manufacturing practices. So, I just want to mention that.

I guess, just to step back to what are dietary supplements…and even if we break apart that phrase, dietary supplement, something to supplement the diet, it is not a replacement for the diet. And sometimes I have to come back to that with people as I talk with them. I remember I had a client some years ago. She had a number of food intolerances, allergies. And what I have found with people, whether they have a high histaminic response or they have a lot of allergies or they just have a lot of issues with food that they’re working on, even more psychological, sometimes what they will do, in my experience, is they’ll start to use gummies and chewables in order to kind of fill the gap of the diet, because they’re not eating so much. They have more fear and phobias around food.

So, then they start doing more with supplements, hoping that a supplement will kind of patch the gap of what they’re not getting from food. And I remember this one client I had. She was fairly young. She had a lot of health conditions. And she was…have for breakfast, like, seven gummies in order to…she thought she was needing calcium. So, these were calcium-containing gummies. But when I was looking at the gummies, you just see that, oh, my goodness, all the sugar that she is getting with these gummies.

And so, it’s kind of interesting because supplements have morphed over the years. Typically, they have been in the formats of…we would think of just oral intake, like powders, and tablets, and capsules. And then I would say that because of all of the pill fatigue, that we started to see other types of formats. So, things like even topical, topical magnesium, things you put on your skin so you don’t have to always orally take something. The chewables so that children can get in dietary supplements, that they taste good. The gummies, gummies have exploded. And I would say, even within the past five years…well, maybe even five to seven years, gummies have been a thing.

And so, a lot of these supplements that are out there, if we think about, well, what are they? They would be, per the regulatory definition, in adherence with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. The DSHEA act 1994 defines a dietary supplement as a product intended to supplement the diet, everything that I just mentioned. So, typically, it’s going to have a dietary ingredient. And it’s intended for ingestion. So, typically, when we talk of supplement, we’re talking something orally administered.

This is why there can be other claims, other forms of administration, whether it’s IV, suppository, topical, and sometimes just in… Again, I’m not the expert on all of the claims and how that’s regulated, but that is a little bit of a different category than just looking at oral dietary supplements in the form of a tablet capsule, chewable gummy, things that are intended…even a sublingual. You put it in your mouth, you let it just kind of absorb in the mouth. So, it’s labeled as a dietary supplement. That’s the other thing.

So, I think that most of us would be in the camp of… I remember, I think it was Dr. Bland who had this analogy of just talking about the landscape of the diet. So many people thinking, well, I’ll just eat this way, and I’ll just take these supplements. And the way that they’re eating is not nutrient-dense. It’s a processed diet, but yet they’re…they have this overlay of supplements, which I always find really interesting. It’s just kind of like… I’ve also met people where it’s like, oh, I can eat this way. I’ll just go and exercise it off.

And in my mind, all these cylinders have to work together, and you know this from your FMCA training. It’s more than just taking a supplement. And the reason why I have these water droplets here is because if I think of the landscape, the whole ocean of signals that we have on a daily basis, so, everything from sleep, circadian rhythm, physical activity, nutrient-dense diet, we can’t expect, like droplets, that these supplements will come in and change the oceanic current. It’s just not possible. We might have these micro ripple effects, but a lot depends on the supplement and how everything is working together.

When I was studying nutrition back in grad school, I could remember…I was in a department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. So, that’s why I was like, who’s from Chicago here? But I was…in this department, I was on the nutrition side, but then there was also the kinesiology side, kind of like the sports medicine side. And it was like you kind of could feel the tension of who is actually doing the better work? Is it better to focus on nutrition, or is it better to focus on movement? And we all know it’s not even an either-or. It’s both-and.

So, that’s how I see supplements, is that supplements are part of the whole complement of everything else. So, always worthwhile. And I feel so strongly about this. We can never revisit the basics enough. Just when you think you’ve got it, but yet there are still these symptoms that are remaining, always come back to those basics, circadian rhythm, sleep, looking at your movement. I don’t even use the word activity or exercise. Movement, just subtle movement, whatever kind of movement we can bring in, relaxation, relationships, looking at stress, looking obviously at nutrition. Always coming back to the basics. Before we logged on the call, Sandi and I were even talking about clothing and how we need to… There’s always something that we can turn our attention to, to better. So, again, there is no one patch. So, I think we get it in terms of food first.

Now, I am at 22 minutes. So, I’m just…I think I’ll just go through a couple more slides. I can see that we’ve got some questions. I’m happy to go on and on. So, Sandi and team, they can let me know.

We know that food first is really important because we have so much in food. I know that I’m preaching to the choir on that. And so, I feel like we’re still uncovering a lot of what food imparts to us. It’s not just macronutrients. It’s not just micronutrients. It’s actually not even just phytonutrients. We now know that there is this plethora of what has been referred to as nutrition dark matter, all of these bioactive compounds that we haven’t even codified, classified, identified. And plants, I find very intriguing because they’re bringing in other signals that we haven’t accounted for, whether they have their own microbiome, they’re bringing in signals from the environment. So, this is why we always come back to food.

If we were being kind of attentive to somebody’s needs, and knew that they had some issues with food, as I had mentioned before with allergy and tolerance or just kind of some of the psychological issues with food, there could be some indication where supplements can start to come in.

Now, I think about this when I would do a lot of the elimination diet at the clinic, where people would struggle with trying to stay on track with a certain dietary pattern that was therapeutically prescribed. And so, what we would need to do is bring in a medical food, which they leveraged as a shake so that they could essentially continue with the flow of this therapeutic plan and still be getting those nutrient signals, but it was temporary. That wasn’t something that we had them on long-term. Typically, it was as short as 21 days. In some cases, we did a 10-day program where we brought in a powdered medical food.

There can also be certain times of life where we need supplements a little bit more. So, whether it’s we’re going through a bout of stress…let me also just mention perimenopause, post-menopause, pregnancy, or now, we are in our 60s, 70s, 80s, and on up, and we’re trying to help ourselves to work better. Maybe we’re recovering after a surgery. I can’t tell you how many people, they feel really blindsided by pre-op, post-op, and how their nutrient needs can be increased, and how they aren’t having that conversation with a surgeon. Nobody is giving them guidance on…they’re just telling them what to stop before the surgery, but not how do you prime your body to be optimal before that surgery happens, and then how do you recover?

So, there could be indications here. What I’m getting at is where supplements may be brought in over and above food for very good reason. And of course, test, don’t guess. So, if somebody is coming to you and their doctor has prescribed magnesium glycinate because their magnesium levels are low, then it would make sense because, obviously, perhaps they are using up more of that magnesium in their body if they have a magnesium-rich diet. But what I like to do is always bring it back to the diet. Did we have a good foundation to start?

Okay. As far as supplements and, I would say, coaching…and perhaps Sandi can speak to this a little bit more. I do think, because you’re in kind of the therapeutic encounter with supporting their changes, you’re reinforcing practitioner plans, you’re helping them stay on course, you’re their advocate. You’re being very supportive. And so, it’s really about helping them to understand why they may be taking certain things. And also, I would say, conversely, helping them to question certain things and take questions back to their practitioner, especially if they start with kind of the garbage bag of many different supplements, and now, they kind of want to go through those with you. And they have some questions, you have some questions. So, I think you’re helping them with adding to their knowledge base and their questions around certain things.

So, where do supplements fit within the therapeutic encounter? Again, thinking about diet and physiology, thinking of short-term support, not typically lifelong. This is why we do testing, too. So, this is why a healthcare practitioner would be looking at testing to see, okay, did we hit the Omega-3 index percentage that we were aiming for? And if so, then maybe we’ve hit the sweet spot.

Another case of this would be like vitamin D. So, for many of us, we are transitioning into a different season. We’re moving from summer into fall. So, this would be a wonderful time, as an example, to get vitamin D tested because you would think that vitamin D would be at its high right now in people. They’re coming off the heels of summer where they would have potentially more sunlight exposure, more skin exposure with the sunlight. And so, getting a test, kind of seeing what was their peak that they were able to achieve with vitamin D through the summer, and then kind of monitoring that as one goes through the different seasons, especially then in March where you now are at the downside of looking at vitamin D levels where you would potentially see the lower amounts.

All right. I did mention the shiny object syndrome. You know what’s funny? There’s always going to be a supplement that people are going to ask you about. Hey, what do you think about creatine? I’m hearing about creatine so much now. Hey, what do you think about your urolithin A? What do you think about spermidine? What do you think about NAD? There’s always going to be something new. So, I want you to keep it in perspective that sometimes people haven’t even addressed the basics, and they’re still looking at like, oh, maybe I need to be on BPC-157, the latest peptide product.

So, let’s just…I’m going to quickly show you this, and then I’ll stop. So, five core reasons why people use supplements. I think, filling nutrient gaps, which as I mentioned, I think that there are plausible reasons for that, supporting physiological systems. And I typically see this with adaptogens and adrenals. Many times, people are on a 5R gut support program. Sometimes people are engaging in detoxification protocols, where they say, oh, I need this for my liver, or you know what, I need to calm down and sleep better for my brain. So, I need L-theanine, and I need these other things for my brain and mood.

And then also modulating symptoms. Sometimes people go supplement window shopping because they’ve got an issue. So, they start going on Amazon, they start going on the internet, and they start looking at, okay, I’ve got indigestion. I was in the grocery store yesterday, kind of a local co-op. And I could see the person in front of me had two herbal tinctures. And it’s like, you can already see that this person is exploring. And it’s just kind of looking at…in his case, kind of looking at bigger vitality as a man. So, just trying to patch these gaps and symptoms that we might feel.

Correcting functional imbalances. And this, I think, is usually done very nicely most times with a qualified functional medicine provider. So, this is where we are testing and we’re looking seasonally. We’re being a bit more sophisticated.

And then, finally, some people looking at markers of resilience. Resilience is a big word these days. So, looking at how can we do better with stress? How can I have more resilience with longevity? So, I think, again, it gets back to the why. Why did they start taking those supplements? And if you can help them whittle down their reasons into each of these buckets, then I think you can go further in that conversation. So, Sandi, I’ll stop sharing here. And I’d love to…

Dr. Sandi: Such a good presentation. Yeah. And we have some great questions that come in. So, if you want to just look at the…there might be some that are similar, but we will do the best we can, as time allows, to answer these questions. Carol, yes, we can provide a link. Natalie at the back end might be able to do that.

Deanna: Perfect. Okay. We’ve got that one. And then, Jessica. What are your resources for addressing or investigating medication supplement interactions and purity concerns and rancidity? I currently use Consumer Labs and NatMed Pro. What I use is Natural Medicines Database, which you can get through IFM if you have a membership, which I think probably all of you do. So, I actually use that because they do update it, and they even have the date that they update it. Sandi, what…do you use a specific database for that one?

Dr. Sandi: No, not really. I’ll just usually…just there’s a study in PubMed or start there. But, yeah, I don’t get those kinds of questions very often. And this person who called and said she is a pharmacist. So, for that.

Deanna: That’s interesting. And pharmacists have so many resources for this. So, it’s interesting, Jessica, that you’re using Consumer Labs and NatMed Pro. I think that there are many different apps that are out there and available. There’s also one called Examine. Examine is nice. But I use Natural Medicines Database. I’ve been really happy with that over the years. I’ve used it consistently.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah.

Deanna: Okay.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. Let’s see. Is it necessary to help with medications like B12 and metformin interaction?

Deanna: That is a big one. And I’m glad that we have a pharmacist here at…in the house, so to speak, because when in doubt, really, to be looking at contraindications, medications, pharmacists, I always like to call them the smarty-pants because they know these things. Many times they know it better than the medical doctor. So, when in doubt, I think coaching your client back to the pharmacist. And if you do have some idea about interactions, maybe posing that as a question.

I think one of the bigger things I think about is not even just with medications like having grapefruit juice with something that can change their medication, but also the timing. Do they need to take that vitamin D with a meal? Yes, they do because you don’t just absorb vitamin D without having some fat. So, I think you can all, as coaches, inform them as to best practices on how to get the most out of their vitamins, too, and their different minerals.

Like with zinc, you definitely don’t want to have zinc on an empty stomach. But for some people, they have difficulty absorbing zinc. One of the practices…and this is just by way of a clinical community of discussion on it, but to take zinc at bedtime so you don’t feel any nausea that you just…you go to sleep, and you’re able to have no meal to compete with the zinc. That’s just an example.

I also think circadian timing is going to come in taking supplements. What time do we take supplements? Do we take probiotics in the morning, or do we take them at night?

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. So many points. And I love where we’re going with this because these are things that the coach can inform their clients to go back and talk to whether it’s their nutritionist, their provider, their pharmacist, to get the answers. But the coach can raise questions, and that’s what coaches do best. They ask questions and get people to really think about…and also starting with the why. Why are they taking the supplement?

Deanna: I feel like that’s always a good place to start, no matter who is working with that client, but especially for coaches. Anissa, this is a great question. Bioavailability of supplements, yes. And how to review that aspect as well as harmful potential of additives and needing toxicity testing.

So, one of the things about dietary supplements is that, oftentimes, you have to look at not just the label of what the active is, but what are the…we call them excipients. Excipients are the other things that are connected to the active and that are in that supplement. So, it’s an excipient. So, one of the things might be magnesium stearate. One thing might be cellulose. One thing might actually be wheat starch.

So, if you have clients who are gluten-free, you may need to be looking out for the client on the excipients. That may be something that their health practitioner hasn’t really keyed into. And I have seen wheat starch, or even if it says starch, you want to have an understanding. Is that potato starch, corn starch? So, if you have somebody who’s trying to avoid certain things, make sure that you’re reading the other ingredients, not just the supplement facts, but the other ingredients.

Dr. Sandi: So, Catherine is up next, but I first want to pose a question that was submitted previously, to give that priority. And she says, how do we help a client understand where to start with supplements without making it overwhelming?

Deanna: Right. Well, again, I think it starts…if I’m thinking from a coach lens, it is, did we look at all of the fundamentals first? Are we ready to have the supplement conversation? So, Dr. Bob Rakowski does a really good job of this, I think, because he talks about sleep right, poop right, live right, exercise right. Not that everything has to be perfect, but I think, always looking back into the fundamentals first, and then how do you have the conversation about supplements? You know, asking like, well, why do you think that you need a supplement? The five main reasons why they…are they looking to resolve a symptom and they’re not having resolution of that symptom just with the fundamentals?

So, I think…that’s a good point, Sandi, in terms of are there good supplement 101 types of handouts? And I think, through the IFM toolkit, there are a few things that can be used and potentially by the coaches in order to kind of give them kind of like a nice overview of here’s what a supplement is and here are some of the things to look at.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. Yeah. That’s a great way to go. Always provide resources for that education, kind of a basic stack that…what that might include. And there are a lot of resources from IFM on that.

Deanna: There are. And otherwise, what I would say to that question is, science, quality, safety. Just talk about those very briefly. And I’ll just give you an example. Like with menopause, there are so many different supplements now for hormone balance. So, you can ask a question. Well, that’s an interesting product. Do you know if that product has been tested in menopausal women? Because many different supplements haven’t been tested in women, in general. There is a lack of research in women. And women have different bioavailability of certain supplements than men do. As an example, I just happen to know about melatonin. Women absorb melatonin better than men. So, why is that? Isn’t that interesting? But if we don’t know that going in, then I just think it makes sense to look a little bit deeper.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. And it’s also…it’s personalized. So, in terms of the question, well, how old is that individual? What’s their health status? Are they on medication? And so many variables to take into account in that question about supplements being overwhelming. Maybe they are because they’re very stressed and…or maybe it’s an affordability issue. So, looking at social determinants of health. So, many, many factors to take into consideration to look at overwhelm.

Deanna: Actually, I’m glad that you brought in the social determinants of health, which is something that we didn’t address, I didn’t address yet. Here’s where I think what can happen is that people start thinking that they need a supplement, but they don’t have a lot of money. Then they go and buy a poor quality supplement that actually may be not beneficial from Anisha’s point about having other things in there that you don’t think would be desirable. So, is it really a good use of their money to be taking that supplement?

I’m thinking of a…and I’ll leave off the brand name, but I’m thinking of a multivitamin that’s out there, a mainstream one, and it’s got dyes in it. It’s got sugar in it. It’s inexpensive. It has good marketing. It looks good on the shelf, but when you actually start to read the label, it’s like, is this doing me any good, or are there things in there that may not be so good? And I know a lot of people go to a Costco to get their fish oil. I don’t think that that’s necessarily wrong or not a good idea, but they may not have the education to read the label to know, is that a good spend for what they have available financially? So, you want to be really keyed into, yes, accessibility and what makes the most sense because you don’t want to be purchasing something that could potentially be taking away or even doing harm to the body.

Dr. Sandi: Such a good point.

Deanna: Should we go to Catherine’s question next?

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. I think we’ve addressed that, whether it’s a good one to use, what should we look for?

Deanna: See, the short answer to that is CGMP, certified good manufacturing practices. And if you go on a lot of websites for companies, you should see that symbol somewhere. Now, keep in mind that there are two ways to…supplements are made. Sometimes companies have their own manufacturing facility. Other times they have a facility that they’re contracting with to make out of that facility. I think both can be okay as long as both are certified good manufacturing practice approved. So, it’s just a matter of…if it’s something that you’re contracting through, sometimes there is less oversight from the company. Whereas when they are manufacturing it in-house, they’re responsible, and they’re checking a lot of these things.

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. So, there’s a question that came in about which practitioners can legally recommend. If you have a license to…if you are a licensed practitioner is number one. So, if you are a medical doctor, if you have a…if you are a nutrition professional, you have a license. And then within that, in terms of legally, but what is your knowledge level? So, there might be practitioners who have no training in nutrition. So, legally, they might be able to, but is it…it becomes a question of ethics and are you going to disseminate information? That’s where, again, health coaches working on care teams can have a lot of resources for people who are the experts, get to know them because somebody might be an expert on supplements for hormones and they might not be an expert on pediatric hormones or heart health hormones. So, within that, there are many ways that you can specialize because it’s such a complicated field. You can’t possibly know everything.

Deanna: Yes. That’s a really good point, Sandi. And also, I would say to that question in addition that it depends on the state and it depends on the scope of practice. And for some practitioners, they have to have special insurance, malpractice insurance, if they are dispensing supplements, especially if they are dispensing supplements through their websites without oversight or any kind of therapeutic intervention. So, there are many layers to that question. I’m not the best person for it, but I know that it depends on state licensure scope within that licensure. And then you also have to look at your professional insurance, and does it cover that?

Dr. Sandi: Absolutely. Good point. Okay. So, Jessica wants to know about homeopathy products.

Deanna: I don’t know the definitive answer to that, Jessica, and it’s a really good question. But if you apply the DSHEA definition that’s normally found in the diet, most likely, they are not because homeopathic remedies and what we’re speaking to with homeopathy, that’s not typically a dietary nutrient or ingredient. So, I would say, most likely not. They are typically orally administered, but I can’t answer that definitively. I’m just kind of extrapolating based on what I know about DSHEA. I love homeopathy, by the way. I love it, Even for pet products and Bach flower remedies and…

Dr. Sandi: Oh, yes. I’ve used those for years. Yeah. Anisha has an interesting question.

Deanna: So, she’s saying yes to food first. Could you also address if or why food is enough for most people due to various factors, soil and gut health, as well as toxic burden? You know, it’s a hard question. It’s a great question, Anisha. It’s a hard question to answer and give a standpoint on. Because food is changing. The food supply is changing. Yes, you’re absolutely spot on that we have to look at the quality of the soil. We have to look at a person’s microbiome because many times that determines what they’re doing with the nutrients.

You know, one case in point here that I hear a lot about is protein. Okay? And Sandi, you hear it, too, on social media, especially when it comes to women. It’s like you can never get enough protein. So, then women know that, well, I can’t get this all from the diet. I can’t eat five eggs every morning. So, I need to figure out how I can get a high-quality protein powder. But now, the issue with this is that there isn’t the other part of the conversation, which is, since women are ramping up on protein, are they also looking at how they’re digesting all of that protein? How it could be tossing and turning the microbiome over because now they have all this undigested protein that maybe is changing things and causing inflammation or bloating.

So, I feel like there are so many parts to the equation for coaches to consider. And maybe that’s even one for all of you coaches to think about, which is you have a 45-year-old woman who thinks that she needs more protein. She’s doing all of these protein powders. She’s complaining. And she’s saying, you know, I’m just so bloated. I’m constipated. You might want to say, well, goodness, I see that you’ve started taking this protein powder, which is good because you’re trying to fill that need. But has your doctor talked with you about looking into your gut health to see whether or not you can digest that protein? So, asking the question, because what do you need for digesting protein? You need healthy stomach acid. And what happens as we get older? Does this stomach acid go up or down? It goes down, right?

So, I feel like we want women to go high on protein, but she’s going low on stomach… So, the nuance. Anisha is bringing out the nuance of all the many factors. And one of the things that I teach on at IFM in the environmental health advanced practice module is toxic load. And what I think all of you can do as coaches is help with things like cooking practices, like one simple one with rice, rinsing the rice, parboiling it, or just putting it in boiling water, tossing off that water, getting rid of the arsenic. You can help them with different food things as well, or even retrograded starch to help reduce the glycemic impact of things like potatoes or rice. I’m just giving little examples there, but toxic burden.

Dr. Sandi: It sure is. Yeah. Ike has a question about our bodies needs change constantly. So, how do we keep up with that without constantly running and getting blood work?

Deanna: Well, you can do that in a couple of ways. You can do it symptomatically, and you can say, well, I’m feeling this, I’m more tired, I’m lethargic, I’m fatigued at this time of day, what could be going on? And then you as a coach could be asking a number of questions. And Sandi, you know this because we did a whole circadian challenge with the coaches. And I feel like such a great place to start here when you’re asking about how do we know if our bodies need change, go back to the clock. What are people doing throughout the entire day?

I was just listening to a podcast, a really good one with Andrew Huberman. And I like his work. I think he gives a lot of great information. And he was talking about the morning. And we’ve talked about that within the coaching sphere as well. How is your morning? And are we addressing certain things at that time of day?

So, people are…they don’t have energy in the morning. That might be a sign something is off. So, we don’t have to run and get labs. And labs are just snapshots anyway. But I do think, looking at circadian rhythm, looking at seasonal rhythm, these are important, looking at life rhythms. So, if you have a woman going from 30 into 40, a lot of change there. A woman going from her 50s into her 60s, a lot of change there, especially with bone health. So, I would say, you can do it more symptomatically. And just kind of how a person is feeling, and getting to the root cause of that.

Dr. Sandi: Oh, absolutely. Okay. Sheetal has a question. She said a client’s on a rainbow diet, doing everything in terms of lifestyle, their vitamin D is still low.

Deanna: So, I would ask the question, why is their vitamin D still low? Are they not absorbing it? Or are they metabolizing it? What is happening there? And if their vitamin D is low, are they having immune issues? Is their calcium and bone health still intact, or are there issues there?

So, I would use that as a jumping off point into asking about absorption. And that would probably be my first take is, how…what are the foods that are giving them the vitamin D? So, are they eating sardines with the bones? Are they eating any kind of fortified foods that have vitamin D added? And are those the best foods for that vitamin D in that matrix?

So, I do agree that bolstering with food is the ultimate as long as our gut is functioning well. So, just think of…if we think of the body as a box, what goes in? We have to think, is that functioning well, absorption? Always coming back to the 5R program. Looking at stomach acid, looking at do we have enough bile in order to help with the uptake of things that are fat soluble, and then looking at the output.

And some people may actually just be using more of that vitamin D. So, you see a low level because it’s being utilized and metabolized. So, that would be the other side of the box. So, you just have to… So, for the pharmacist in the group, if there are others, we think of that as pharmacokinetics. Nutrients go through that pharmacokinetics, too.

Dr. Sandi: All right. Wendy wants to know a good case for taking green or red powders. She’s working with a client who takes both.

Deanna: I would ask why, Wendy. What is a client wondering there? So, you’re saying you have a client who takes both. The reasoning is that it flavors water. I think, if that is what will get somebody to drink the water, I think that that could be useful. My only question would be, what is in the green powder? What is in the red powder? I am now lecturing for the Institute for Functional Dentistry, which is an offshoot of IFM. And is it good that we have on our teeth, on our dentition, on our enamel, certain things throughout the day? What is actually in that green powder, that red powder? Is it a sugary carbohydrate containing substance? Is it acidic?

I think that there’s nothing wrong with nutrient-dense powders to help fill the gap. I think some of them are quite overpriced because they put the kitchen sink in, and it makes you look and feel like you’re getting a lot, but it may just be like a sprinkling of things. But I’m not opposed.

The only thing that I would be thinking of there is not necessarily the science, but the quality. When I worked in the industry with green powders…because a lot of those actives are living, like barley grass, just all the different grasses. This is living stuff. And so, over time, it can grow microorganisms. So, if they’re taking a green or red powder, be attentive to expiration dates. In fact, can I just make a huge shout out to make definite attention of your clients to expiration dates and quarterly going through their supplements to be sure that nothing has expired.

My husband leaves the cap on our vitamin C sometimes loose. And that really drives me nuts because I say, vitamin C oxidizes through the exposure with oxygen. So, even though you might have vitamin C or other vitamins or other supplements that are well within the expiration, still give it the sniff test. If the fish oil is smelling rancid, the vitamin C is turning color and it’s not normal…like a beige color, it has little brown speckles, that is… You want to look on both sides. You don’t want to go past the expiration date. You want to be sure that what you have is still a quality product.

Dr. Sandi: I am so glad you brought this up. And especially if you have seniors as clients, there are things all over social media. Millennial goes to their parents’ house and looks at everything is expired by like four years. And so, please, that would be… And I love this where we’re going with this because this is such a great area, again, that coaches can educate people about.

So, there’s a question coming up about what can coaches do regarding prescribing supplements. So, it’s not that, not telling them what to take, but looking at what they are taking and what they’re potentially taking, and educating them about all of these things that we’re talking about that most…again, most people are not aware of and they’re not going to find on the bottle.

And I just want to say, with the greens and red powders also, sometimes there can be…they put everything with the kitchen sink in there. And so, you might be sensitive to some of these, you don’t know, or maybe they’re not organic, which is what I…I used to throw this in my smoothie. And now, I’ll just have 20 bags lay out sometimes individually. So, I know I have control over each one that I’m taking and rotating them.

Deanna: That’s a really good point. Because some people are sensitive to nightshades, and then there’ll be tomato powder in there. Or some people are sensitive to gluten to the point that they couldn’t have wheat grass in that green powder. And a lot of green powders do have wheat grass or other grasses. And sometimes those can tip off some allergic reactions. So, that’s a good point, Sandi.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. So, we just have time for just a few more questions. So, I’ll leave it to Deanna to see which ones.

Deanna: Well, I love what you just said, Sandi, too, with Milena, I think, is the individual here with the question about not prescribing. I think that helping them to learn how to read a label of a supplement is important to…yes to a lot of the other things that are in there, how they’re taking it, the time of day, are they taking it before or after the meal? So, like with fish oil or vitamin D or things that are fat soluble, I usually like people to take that right in the middle of the meal. So, just little things like that, I think, is really impactful and can even change how a supplement operates in the body.

Dr. Sandi: Yeah. And so, as a care team member, you play the most important role as a coach. So, the doctor might say, oh, you need to take vitamin D. Well, which brand, what kind? That’s where you can come in and support the doctor. And then you can communicate back with the provider in terms of what you have educated them on. And it is the network you have of care providers that is going to grow your business as opposed to thinking, I need to recommend supplements to grow my practice as a health coach. You grow by having a network of providers who respect you and refer to you, and you refer to them for supplement recommendations.

Deanna: Well said, definitely. Well, maybe we end with Deepa’s question here. I really like this. She says, I really… Okay. So, how do you suggest guiding people back to basics like nervous system regulation before supplementing for symptoms?

Well, maybe I’ll give you an example. Some of you know that I was in a documentary on menopause. It’s called “The M Factor.” And in that documentary, they talked about how less than 5% of women are on hormone therapy. So, any kind of hormones. And even of… I was at one of the documentary showings… And by the way, I’m on hormones. Just for full disclosure, I am on hormone replacement therapy. Does that mean it solves everything for me? No. I still have to monitor my bones. I still have to go to the gym. And it’s not a patch. It’s not a cure-all. In fact, in one audience, we had over 100 people, we asked them, of the people on hormones, how many of you feel like you have absolute relief? Two hands went up. Everybody else was like, no, I still have issues.

So, I see that as a parallel to supplements. Many people think that a supplement will save them. Again, they see it as the shiny object like, this is it. I heard something really on a podcast, like, you know, Dr. Hyman was talking about this, or Dr. Huberman was talking about this, or I think this could work for me.

And so, there is that element of hope. But keep in mind, too…and I love this question for the standpoint of there’s nothing to kind of get in and just, I would say, save us in the way of…it may help with temporary relief, or we might get some relief. But I think, at the end of the day, the quality of that supplement and how it’s received by the body does come back to things like the nervous system regulation.

Even digestion. Let’s go back to what I was saying about digestion. If you’re stressed, you’re already changing your stomach acid, you’re changing your digestive capacity. So, you may be taking all these supplements, but then you’re not actually taking them into the body. And you know which supplements require this a lot is minerals. Minerals need that interaction in the stomach with acid to help them with uptake. So, if we’re not calm, and we are not breathing, and…again, I feel like starting with some of those basics. Breath work can be so instrumental for just reregulating the body. So, I kind of see a supplement like this little raft. People think it’s like, oh, I’m going there with the supplement, but then they soon figure out that that’s not going to solve the whole problem.

Dr. Sandi: Such a good point and such a good place to end on. And as you were talking about that, I thought about…because I do take a lot of supplements when I’m packing for a trip. It could be a half a day, I’ll take so much time packing those supplements much more than clothes, other decisions. How to take supplements for a seven-day trip, for example, it can be stressful. So, sometimes I’ll just have to abandon that. What’s the worst that can happen if I eliminate or forget some supplements for a few days?

Deanna: Or even just do a supplement break, like a weekend where it’s like, okay, now that I don’t have to work, and I don’t have all this stress, let me just see how my body feels when you go back to baseline. Because I think, after a while, if you always take the same supplements, the body gets used to it, then you stop seeing it. So, it’s almost like you need the body to see it again. Now, of course, there are certain nutrients where if you’re deficient, you may have a different protocol for that. But I especially see that with herbs and botanicals. Sometimes the body needs to see it again.

Dr. Sandi: Such a good point. Well, this has been so incredible. I want to thank you. Again, we so value you and the wisdom and your…again, the spirit that you bring. And so, I want to thank everybody who came. We have a lot of our students, graduates, prospective students. If you’re new to FMCA, welcome. I hope you will return for other Ask the Experts. We have incredible lineup. Dr. Liz Boham is coming on and so many other brilliant presenters. So, stay tuned for more Ask the Experts. And thank you again, Deanna. And you will get a copy of these slides. So, rest assured that you will get the recording and these slides. So, thank you so much. Bye now.

Deanna: Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Bye-bye.