It depends on the nutrient in question. Vitamin D has significant benefits when you take 5,000IU, which is 8.3 times the US RDA for adults (600IU). Creatine has benefits with 5g of supplementation; to get that from food would require 2lbs of red meat every day.
If I were to wager, I’d say that most people are consuming too few micronutrients, and would benefit from supplementation. or eating higher quality real food. Very few people are maxing out their nutrition.
No, not really. Vitamin D in particular (like all fat-soluble vitamins) is not hard to overdose on.
most people are consuming too few micronutrients
I’d probably phrase it like this: almost every person will benefit from increased consumption of some set of micronutrients. But the issue is that this set is different for different people.
Take iron as an example. Some people need more iron in their diets. But some people need less. Can you recommend more iron to some person X not knowing anything about him or her? No, you can’t.
Vitamin D is actually pretty difficult to overconsume (at least, accidentally—if you wanted to suicide by Vitamin D, it’d be a long and annoying process). According to mayoclinic, you’d need to consume around 50,000IU daily for several months to start getting into Vitamin D toxicity.
I don’t think micronutrients fall under the “the more the better” category.
For all nutrients, micro and macro, there is an optimal range with a minimum and a maximum.
It depends on the nutrient in question. Vitamin D has significant benefits when you take 5,000IU, which is 8.3 times the US RDA for adults (600IU). Creatine has benefits with 5g of supplementation; to get that from food would require 2lbs of red meat every day.
If I were to wager, I’d say that most people are consuming too few micronutrients, and would benefit from supplementation. or eating higher quality real food. Very few people are maxing out their nutrition.
No, not really. Vitamin D in particular (like all fat-soluble vitamins) is not hard to overdose on.
I’d probably phrase it like this: almost every person will benefit from increased consumption of some set of micronutrients. But the issue is that this set is different for different people.
Take iron as an example. Some people need more iron in their diets. But some people need less. Can you recommend more iron to some person X not knowing anything about him or her? No, you can’t.
Vitamin D is actually pretty difficult to overconsume (at least, accidentally—if you wanted to suicide by Vitamin D, it’d be a long and annoying process). According to mayoclinic, you’d need to consume around 50,000IU daily for several months to start getting into Vitamin D toxicity.
I completely agree with the rest of your post.