Supplements won’t make you healthy

We sell supplements, so this is an odd thing to lead with. But it is what we believe, and it shapes every product we choose to stock.

Nothing in a capsule or powder will do for you what a decent night’s sleep does. Or a walk most days. Or meals built mostly around vegetables, protein and whole foods. Or people you see regularly and enjoy being around. Those four things, sleep, movement, food and connection, are the foundation of ageing well, and the research behind them is deep, consistent and decades old. No supplement will replace this.

That is why we call them supplements. They sit on top of the healthy living foundation, not in place of it. If the foundation isn’t there, a bottle of NMN won’t act as a substitute. However there is evidence that some supplements may act as a health amplifier to a healthy lifestyle.

What “healthy ageing” actually means

In 2013 a group of researchers published a paper describing the biological processes that drive ageing. They called them the hallmarks of ageing, and the list was updated in 2023 to twelve. It includes things like mitochondrial dysfunction, loss of the ability to sense and respond to nutrients properly, a decline in the cell’s recycling system (autophagy), chronic low-grade inflammation, and the build-up of senescent cells, the “retired” cells that stop dividing but stay put and leak inflammatory signals into surrounding tissue.

A review published in Frontiers in Nutrition last month looked at that last hallmark in the brain specifically. The authors, a group of researchers in Mexico City, describe how senescent cells accumulate in brain tissue with age and appear to be a driver of neurodegeneration rather than just a bystander. They then survey five dietary compounds that may counter this, including resveratrol, and lay out where the evidence sits for each.

We’ll come back to what they found. The reason the hallmarks matter here is that they explain how we think about our range.

Why we stock what we stock

The hallmarks don’t act alone. Mitochondria falter, so oxidative stress rises, so senescent cells accumulate, so inflammation climbs, so the mitochondria falter further. Because these processes feed each other, we don’t think a single molecule is the answer. We look for supplements where the research points to a different hallmark, and where the human evidence, even if early, is worth taking seriously.

Roughly, the range lines up like this.

NAD+ and cellular energy. NAD+ levels decline with age, and NAD+ is central to how mitochondria produce energy and how cells repair DNA. NMN and NR are both precursors that raise NAD+ in the blood, which multiple controlled human trials have now shown. What that does downstream in humans is still being worked out. TMG sits alongside these because producing NAD+ from a precursor uses up methyl groups, and TMG is a methyl donor.

Oxidative stress and glutathione. GlyNAC combines glycine and N-acetyl cysteine, the two building blocks of glutathione, the body’s main internal antioxidant. Glutathione levels fall with age. Small human pilot trials in older adults have reported improvements in a range of markers after supplementation, though the trials are small and more work is needed. L-Ergothioneine and PQQ sit in the same territory, with ergothioneine in particular drawing interest because the body has a dedicated transporter for it, which is unusual for a dietary compound.

Cellular housekeeping. Autophagy is the cell’s recycling process, and it slows with age. Spermidine is being studied for its role in keeping autophagy active; the human evidence is mostly observational so far. CA-AKG works on nutrient sensing and has an uncontrolled human study suggesting it may influence markers of biological age, alongside stronger animal data.

Inflammation and senescence. This is where trans-resveratrol comes in, and where the Frontiers review is directly relevant. The authors classify resveratrol as a “senomorphic”, meaning it does not remove senescent cells but may quieten the inflammatory signals they send out. Of the five compounds they reviewed, they rate resveratrol as having the relatively strongest human evidence: trials in people with Alzheimer’s found it well tolerated and showed changes in some inflammatory markers in the brain, though effects on memory and cognition were modest and inconsistent. They also flag the limitations, particularly that resveratrol is poorly absorbed and that the doses used in animal studies are far above anything you’d get from food.

The fundamentals. A two-year randomised trial published in Nature Medicine this year found that older adults taking a daily full-spectrum multivitamin aged slightly slower on two DNA-based “epigenetic clocks” than those on placebo. The effect was small, about four months over two years, and the researchers say it isn’t yet known whether the clock changes mean anything for actual health. But it is one of the larger and better-run supplement trials of recent years, and it makes a simple point: being short on basic nutrients is not a neutral state. Our Hyaluronic Acid with Micro-Vitamin is not that product and we don’t claim that result. It is a targeted formulation for people who already eat reasonably well and want to cover the gaps that are hard to close from food alone, such as vitamin D3, K2 and choline. The hyaluronic acid is there because customers, and some skin specialists, have asked for it and the research on skin and joint comfort is reasonable.

What the review actually says about supplements

Their summary is that these compounds have strong support in cells and animals, early and mixed support in people, and that it is not yet known whether taking them meaningfully reduces senescent cell burden in the human brain. They also make a point that most of the benefit seen in laboratory studies comes at doses higher than a normal diet provides, which is why human trials tend to use standardised supplements rather than food. That is the case for supplements. Not that they replace a good diet, but that they can deliver a specific compound at a level a good diet can’t.

They also note that the compounds they reviewed can interact with common medications, and that long-term safety at high doses in older adults with other conditions is not well studied. If you are on medication, talk to your GP or pharmacist before adding anything.

What this means for you

If you are looking for something to fix a lifestyle that isn’t working, you could spend some money on a good pair of walking shoes. If your foundation is in place and you want to work on specific processes the research links to ageing, that is what our range is built for.

We’re not scientists. We read the studies, we ask people who know more than we do, and we try to describe what we find without overhyping it. If you read something here and think we’ve got it wrong, tell us. Some of our best corrections have come from customers.

Stephen

Sources

Salas-Venegas V, López-Diazguerrero NE, Ramírez-Carreto RJ, Konigsberg M, Chavarría A. Targeting cellular senescence through nutritional senotherapeutics in brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2026;13:1824908.

https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2026.1824908

Li S, Hamaya R, Zhu H, et al. Effects of daily multivitamin–multimineral and cocoa extract supplementation on epigenetic aging clocks in the COSMOS randomized clinical trial. Nature Medicine. 2026;32:1012–1022.

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-026-04239-3

López-Otín C, Blasco MA, Partridge L, Serrano M, Kroemer G. Hallmarks of aging: an expanding universe. Cell. 2023;186:243–278.

This article is for general information only and is not medical advice. Supplements are not a substitute for a balanced diet, regular exercise or medical care.