Keeping high-performance brain and healthy

Coding requires concentration. If we are tired code would be less readable. Without concentration, it is easy to add new bugs and it increases our works because we need to fix the bug later. We don’t want to add new bugs if possible. Our brain should be clear enough to choose proper technique
for writing clean code. Keeping healthy is the most important to enjoy our daily life. If a brain doesn’t work well it’s hard to focus on a task like learning something new or giving a good presentation, developing high quality software and so on. However, I guess many people don’t know the role of the each nutrition that a body and brain require.
I have read more than 30 books in two months in order to get new knowledge to keep healthy and increase my performance. I started to take supplements because it is relatively easy to start. I keep taking them for more than two months and I feel that my brain and body are the best condition in my life. So I will share those supplements that I take every day.

My current supplements

• Morning
  • Whey protein, 20 – 30 g
  • Water soluble Dietary fiber, 5 g
  • Vitamin B complex 50, 1 pill
  • Vitamin C, 1000 mg
  • Niacin (Vitamin B-3), 100 mg
  • Magnesium 133mg
  • Iron, 50 mg (thrice a week)
• Noon
  • Vitamin B-1, 100 mg when eating carbohydrate
  • Vitamin C, 1000 mg
  • Niacin (Vitamin B-3), 500 mg
• Evening
  • Whey protein, 20 – 30 g (before sleeping)
  • Vitamin B complex 50, 1 pill
  • Vitamin C, 1000 mg
  • Magnesium 133 mg
  • Niacin (Vitamin B-3), 500 mg
  • Vitamin A, 50000 IU
  • Vitamin D, 10000 IU
  • Vitamin E, 800 IU (D-alpha-tocopherol, Mix-tocopherols)
  • Vitamin K (MK7), 200 mcg
  • Selenium, 200 mcg

Protein is most important nutrition

As you know, a body mainly consists of water, protein and fat. We can recognize that the body wants water by thirsty but how about protein? If protein is not enough in the body, lots of issues happen to you.

• Is your hair dry?
• Is your skin not fine texture?
• Is your stomach always bad condition?
• Are you often depressed?
• etc…

Those may come from lack of protein. Hair, skin, digestive enzyme and etc… are made from protein. Many hormones like serotonin and dopamine are also protein. You feel sick somewhere in your body if the ingredients are not enough but it is hard to identify because protein is not direct cause. If you go to see a doctor who follows orthomolecular medicine you would get enough knowledge of nutrition for the treatment, otherwise many medicines may become your friends. Lifestyle habit is very important to keep healthy.
As I wrote above, digestive enzyme is made from protein. It means that the body doesn’t have enough protein it can’t digest foods and absorb the nutrition. Since lack of nutrition leads to sick or poor condition I try to intake enough protein which is 1.5 ~ 2g/kg. My weight is about 60kg, so my daily amount of protein is 90 ~ 120g.
I take many supplements but those nutrition don’t show its power without enough proteins because many nutrition is consumed during the process of metabolism.
Recommended protein is whey protein because the balance of amino acid is better than soy protein. If you have diarrhea after drinking protein powder you should start with small amount for per serving. I recommend 5g protein 3 times per day. If it doesn’t solve the problem you may not have enzyme for lactose. There are WPC and WPI whey protein. WPI is more expensive than WPC but WPI doesn’t contain lactose, so it may fit to you.

Water soluble Vitamins

Water soluble vitamins can’t stay in a body for a long time. It is excreted a few hours later. Therefore it’s important to take them multiple times every day to keep the blood concentration.

Vitamin B keeps a brain clear

Vitamin B has a role to keep our nervous system. To come to the conclusion, I feel less tiredness than before. In my case, I felt the effect 1 week later after I started taking Vitamin B-50. Vitamin B-50 contains all nutrition which belong to vitamin B group. The number “50” means that the amount of the nutrition is 50 mg or 50 mcg (ug).

My choice is following. There is B-100 as well but maybe it’s too much.

I don’t find any reference how much amount of each nutrition is consumed in the body but it’s very important for keeping healthy to take B-50 twice every day. There are about 10 nutrition in vitamin B group but I take B-50 to take following effect.

• B1: removing lactic acid and muscle pain/fatigue
• B2: fat energy metabolism
• B3: fine skin, preventing from excess sebum, reducing allergy reaction, decomposing alcohol smoothly
• B6: protein metabolism
• B12: generating red blood cell

Especially, B1 and B3 are main for me. Vitamin B group is working together so it’s important to take B complex supplement to fulfill all necessary nutrition. When you take B-50 supplements you will definitely be surprised when peeing because its color is vivid yellow. The color of vitamin B-50 is yellow due to its color of vitamin B2. Yellow pee shows that the nutrition is enough in the body. I will explain the effect below what I know.

B1

Lactic acid is generated in our body when we do exercise. If vitamin B1 is not enough the process to decompose lactic acid can’t proceed smoothly. It leads for example tiredness, acidification and low temperature of our body. When eating carbohydrates foods lots of vitamin B1 is consumed. Alcohol also eats up vitamin B1. It’s better to decrease the amount of carbohydrates food, sweets and alcohol for this reason.
There are some studies to say it helps for cancer treatment. As long as I know, cancer appears when a DNA is injured for some reason, maybe by active oxygen, and a cell fails to copy its image. About 1000 cancers appear every day but our immune cells break it. When the immune system doesn’t work the cancer stays in the body and starts taking nutrition. Main food is protein and glucose. While cancer is there gluconeogenesis system, which generates glucose from muscle, is stimulated and lactic acid increases. When lactic acid can’t be decomposed or excreted the body becomes acidic and it leads immunity weakens. In order to process the lactic acid smoothly, we should take enough vitamin B1.

I take B-1 after lunch when I eat large serving of pasta or rice.

B3

Vitamin B3 is called niacin. It’s simple structure so it’s used for more than 300 processes in our body. It helps to keep our mind. Serotonin is one of important hormone for stability of mind and it’s generated from protein. Its path is protein -> tryptophan -> 5-HTP -> serotonin -> melatonin. Niacin is used between tryptophan and 5-HTP. If niacin is not enough 60 pieces of tryptophan are used to generate 1 niacin. In the result, enough serotonin isn’t generated due to lack of material and the mental becomes unstable. This is just one of factors for depressing but it’s worth trying to take niacin for the treatment because it is 100% safe. However, you have to be careful enough to take niacin because your skin will be red and itchy. It’s called niacin flash. It’s similar to allergy reaction but it is good reaction. The reason is that niacin expands the blood vessels and releases histamine from there. Histamine is allergy substance and it’s generated from histidine which is one of proteins. If you want to try niacin it’s better to take vitamin C in advance at least for 1 week. Then, start niacin from less than 100 mg. This is what I used at first.

If you don’t want to have such allergy reaction niacinamide is another option. It doesn’t cause such a reaction but it seems to be less effective than niacin.

I had the niacin flush many times. It often happens when I take niacin when I’m hungry but it doesn’t when I take it after meal. As I wrote above, it expands blood vessels. I actually feel my body is hot after taking it. I think enough nutrition is carried from end to end by expanding blood vessels. It improves skin because there are enough materials to fix there. I don’t feel my skin is super fine. However, I feel that it is less oil on my face and less acne. Acne is often under my chin before taking niacin. I’m satisfied with this result.
The last point I want to mention is that niacin is important to decompose alcohol. I like whiskey and beer but I drink less alcohol this year, so I haven’t been able to test the effect. But I hope niacin helps. Once we drink alcohol it goes to liver. It resolves to acetaldehyde. As you know it’s poison and it’s the reason for hangover. It’s important to have enough nutrition for the prevention. Acetaldehyde is decomposed to acetic acid and niacin helps this process.

I take following 500mg niacin after lunch and dinner but not in the morning at the moment because I don’t eat breakfast. Niacin flush attacks me when I take it together with protein powder right after I wake up in the morning. Its reaction is not strong though my body gets hot and little itchy but it refreshes me.

B6 and folic acid

Vitamin B6 is used to decompose protein. Lack of this nutrition may lead depressing, frustration finger numbness for example. The amount of B6 may not be enough if some of you take EAA/BCAA and you feel sick. Folic acid is also important for pregnant woman and baby. One of books said that the baby who is born from a mother who is lack of folic acid has intellectual development problem.

Vitamin C

I think vitamin C is well known. Many products contain vitamin C for many reason. My grandmother often told me it prevented from catching cold, so it is better to eat fruits such as orange. I didn’t believe it. I found it was not accurate because the amount of vitamin C is not enough even when eating fruits. Even when we eat one lemon its amount of vitamin C is 20mg. But many books or studies say that we should take at least 3000 mg per day if we want to have the great power. It seems to stop each symptom for cold (cough and runny nose). Luckily, I have had no chance to test the effect though because I’m healthy.
Vitamin C is one of antioxidant substances. Active oxygen is generated in our body for many reason even when we breath. It’s very important for our healthy to reduce active oxygen. For example, arteriosclerosis is caused by the oxidation of LDL-cholesterol. Macrophages eat oxidized cholesterol. Then, macrophages’ carcass increases and it causes arteriosclerosis.
Vitamin C is necessary to generate collagen. If collagen is not generated our blood vessels and bone become weak. It also affects the skin.
It is used for more than 500 processes in our body because it’s simple structure. The required amount increases when we have big stress, when we are sick and injured. It improves absorption rate for iron. It’s used for cancer treatment as well. A book said that a cancer cell is covered by collagen by injecting vitamin C directly to the blood vessels that a cancer makes. The collagen blocks that the cancer splits and transfer to another place. Vitamin C has also wonderful effect that it stimulates natural killer cells which is one of immune cells. By the way, natural killer cell is very important cell to kill cancer.

We don’t have to spend lots of money to Vitamin C. Choose cheapest one. Following is I think cheapest one. There is another size which contains 110 capsules but its price is a bit more expensive. Why…?

When I drink protein powder I use powder type because I could buy it cheaper than tablet type in Amazon. Sometimes I drink it with water but I recommend to take tablet type because vitamin C is strong acid. Vitamin C is ascorbic acid and its pH is 2. Our teeth is covered by enamel but it starts melting when pH is 5.5. It causes cavity. It may not be problem if we gargle right after drinking vitamin C but it’s not always possible.

Vitamin K

It’s effect isn’t not known well I guess. Vitamin K1 helps coagulating blood. Vitamin K2 prevents from leaking calcium from bone and blood. It is given to a baby to decrease risk of bleeding in a skull (I don’t know the proper name though…). Not to run out, 100 – 200 mcg vitamin K2 needs to be taken when you take 10000 IU of vitamin D. Bone becomes stronger by taking vitamin D and K together. It seems that the bone density increases if taking vitamin D3 and K2 for more than 2 years. Some vitamin D products contain vitamin K. Some books recommend taking MK7 if you want to take vitamin K because its quality is better and the effects lasts longer (but I can’t feel the effects). There are MK4 and MK7 in vitamin K2 group. MK4 is from animal and MK7 is from bacteria. I know natto contains enough vitamin K but I don’t know about other foods.

Fat soluble Vitamins

Fat soluble vitamins can stay in our body. If you take too much fat soluble vitamins, you may feel something abnormal. If you want to start taking mega amount of fat soluble vitamins you should learn them first.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is important for mucus membrane for example eyes, nose and throat. A doctor recommends that taking vitamin A 100,000 IU for 2 days when you think you got cold. Normally, this amount of vitamin A is too much because it causes excessive symptoms. Vitamin A binds to protein and is carried. If there isn’t enough protein in the body vitamin A can’t bind to it and it causes excessive symptoms like head ache, muscle pain, stomach ache, inflammation of the lips, hair loss, etc… Therefore, taking enough protein is first. The required amount depends on person, so I think start amount should be small. In my case, I started with 10,000 IU and it’s 50,000 IU now. I keep it for more than a month but I don’t have any problem so far.

My current supplement contains 25,000 IU but it is too much at first. If you want to try you should start from 10,000 IU.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is generated when we are under the sun but many people are not outside enough time. Required time to generate enough vitamin D depends on place and season. Some japanese blog posts say that it is 15 min to 75 min in Japan but I couldn’t find any resources that say how much vitamin D is generated.
Vitamin D seems to have many effects. Making bone and immune system stronger, healing seasonal allergies, prevention of virus infection, decreasing cancer risk, etc… It seems that vitamin D3 has better effect than vitamin D2. Check the type if you want to buy vitamin D.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E is known as antioxidant substance. When taking vitamin C more than 10g it’s oxidized. Vitamin E works to prevent this and enhance the effectiveness of vitamin B and C. This vitamin also reduce cancer risk. I guess it’s because it reduces active oxygen. I think the less active oxygen is, the less chances normal cells are injured. It leads less cancer risk.
Vitamin E should be natural type rather than artificial type because natural type is more effective. Natural type starts with “d” whereas artificial type starts with “dl”. There are several substances for vitamin E but d-alpha-tocopherol is good choice among them. It depends on a doctor which type to recommend. Some recommends d-alpha-tocopherol, some recommends d-mix-tocopherol. I take both of them.

Other vitamins and minerals

I think many people have experienced that one of eyes twitches. Calcium contracts muscles and magnesium relaxes it. If you’re short on magnesium the muscle can’t be relaxed. You may be short on magnesium if your eyes often twitch. It might be good to try magnesium for a couple of days in this case. Other than that, magnesium may improve your sleep quality because of the relax effect. Since sleep involves various factors it’s hard to say its effect but I feel it works.

If you try magnesium supplement, you should choose something other than magnesium oxide because its effectiveness is not good. Magnesium oxide is often used as laxative.

Conclusion

I’ve felt better than before since I’ve started taking supplements. However, I started new things simultaneously and I can’t swear that supplements drastically improve your specific symptom and condition but I’m sure it helps because nutrition is basis of our body. No one can build a house without material. I recommend taking vitamin C, B-50 and E at first. Add different supplements if you want to try more.
There are lots of things we should do if we want to keep/improve our performance. Supplements is one of easiest things in my opinion because we don’t have to spend extra time. Buy products and take them after meal. Don’t you think it’s worth trying?