Taking Your Supplement Regimen to the Next Level (Performance & Longevity Series)

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Transcript: Taking Your Supplement Regimen to the Next Level (Performance & Longevity Series)

Season 12, Episode 21  |

Jamie Martin

We’re back with another episode of Life Time Talks. I’m Jamie Martin and I’m here with Jim LaValle for our series on performance and longevity with MIORA.

 

Jim is a clinical pharmacist, the co-chair of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, the chair of the International Peptide Society, and the chief science officer for Life Time. Hey, Jim.

 

Jim LaValle

Hey.

 

Jamie Martin

How’s your day going so far?

 

Jim LaValle

Wonderful.

 

Jamie Martin

All right. We’re going to dive deep into a topic that I think you’re probably pretty excited about. This is a space that you thrive in. We’re talking about taking your supplement regimen to the next level, kind of next gen supplementation that we’re starting to see and hear more about.

 

Before we dive into that, though, I do think it’s really important to say, hey, as you’re thinking about supplementation, it can be really tempting to jump on a social media trend or see something that’s out there in the world and think, that’s what I’m going to do, because it promises some sort of result. When it comes down to it, though, one thing we always talk about at Life Time is having those foundational elements in place. And that’s really about good nutrition as a foundation.

 

So talk about that and why supplementation can help with that good nutrition program.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, in the end, there’s no supplement that replaces eating great food. So that lifestyle of, you know, selecting better choices with your food is going to provide not just the nutrients from the food, but there’s all kinds of other little signaling compounds that are included in fresh food that we get to experience and get benefit from. So that’s important.

 

And then, you know, the basic nutrients, you most people don’t eat enough fish. They really do need omega-3 fatty acids and you want one that’s clean. The one thing you can be sure of, and I feel like I’d be a mistake not to, you know, really make sure people understand this, lifetime’s commitment to quality is as good or better than any other supplement company that’s available in North America.

 

It’s incredible. Fish is an example. Small anchovies keep the omega-3s really clean, no mercury, all the things that you’re looking for in a quality omega-3 supplement. And that’s a commitment to quality on every ingredient and every product. And I think that’s something that’s just outstanding, that the philosophy of the purest best materials are being used. So gotta bring that up.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep, and also just adding on to that the commitment to the third party testing and NSF certification for select product, just knowing like open to third party testing, getting validated in that way as well.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, absolutely. I I think third party testing is it should be a standard by now. you know, Life Time led the way.

 

Jamie Martin

Yeah, I love that for us.

 

So let’s talk about what are some of the trends we’re seeing in the supplement industry right now. Like, obviously there’s lots of talk. We’re in this space of longevity and performance. Like, are you seeing any innovations that you’re really excited about in this space? Are you involved in any would be a question.

 

Jim LaValle

Well, know, 26 books and five databases on natural products. I’ve obviously have been involved on the science side of it for quite a while. And the clinical side. Yeah, there’s some great innovation. One innovation is just delivery. How do we get nutrients that don’t normally absorb to absorb better? Because there’s, you know, it’s interesting. Berberine, for example, everybody knows berberine by now, right? Because it’s you know, recently, because like, oh, it has GLP-1 activity. Problem is it’s 0.3 % absorbed.

 

Jamie Martin

Got it. So how do we actually, if it has those things and we want to take this, how do we help improve that observability?

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, one of the ways is through innovation. And so in the dietary supplement category, there’s liposomal tablet technologies, there’s nanomolecule, nanoparticle technologies where you’re making them, the particle size is a lot smaller, and then being able to get those nutrients into the cell and absorb versus virtually not getting hardly any absorption.

 

And so I think one of the innovations, which we don’t need to go into real depth, but it’s just now we’re seeing different ways to get compounds to absorb better, especially compounds that are really valuable. Curcumin’s another one. A huge amount of variable absorption. And now we can get it to absorb. So I think the first innovation is how do we get things to absorb better so that you can take advantage of the qualities of that nutrient? That’s one.

 

The next is the evolution of looking for more and more specific targets with a nutrient. You know, and when I say a target, it’s what action are you looking for it to do before? You know, early in the industry, it’s like, hey, vitamins, minerals, amino acids. Now we’re looking at extractions of botanicals, nutraceuticals, small molecules, peptides that you can take that have very specific actions and you can measure that and you can say, you know, lot of us, we take a multivitamin, you know, we take vitamin D, we’re trusting that it’s going to be good for us. And sometimes people feel it. But in this category, more of these kinds of compounds you feel. Meaning I take it and it is helping me with a specific goal and I see the difference or my labs show the difference.

 

Jamie Martin

Got it. That’s kind of cool. Any specific examples? I mean, you mentioned curcumin kind of falling is that in that category?

 

Jim LaValle

Well, curcumin’s, you know, like I know we developed a liposomal tablet technology for that, it, you know, it definitely people report, you know, they feel great. It helps to maintain a healthy immune balance in terms of inflammation response. And people go, wow, dramatic difference. So that’s really great. A big one, nicotinamide riboside, a great example of kind of innovation where their target was to look at how do we improve mitochondrial function by getting NAD to be made in the cells. So nicotinamide riboside is developed. It’s third party tested. It has good science behind it. It’s been researched for 15 years. And finally, we’re seeing the value of it. And a lot of times that’s what happens. Some of these compounds have been researched for over a decade before they get to the market. So NR I think is novel and innovative because it strikes at that NAD target which you know, that’s the hottest topic now.

 

Jamie Martin

I mean, well, even to that point, let’s just talk about NAD for a second and why it’s so important to health. I mean, you said it’s right in the cells. You need it to be active at the cellular level to support our mitochondrial health. What are we missing? I know we have a whole episode on mitochondrial health too, but let’s just touch on it here.

 

Jim LaValle

I mean, you know when you have adequate levels of NAD you can make energy in your cells So it’s it’s very straightforward and as you get older You don’t make as much. Yeah, so once you get to 40 that NAD pool starts going down and now you’re more prone for education You know, I’m feel tired. It’s you know, yeah now all of sudden I’m not performing the way I used to on his in my 20s or 30s, right? Right and that’s because you don’t have the cellular energy that you need so and are a great advanced supplement that is in the hottest topic of mitochondrial health, helping people to optimize their ability to make.

 

Jamie Martin

Okay, I’m just gonna make sure I can say it because we played around with this nicotinamide riboside

 

Jim LaValle

Almost.

 

Jamie Martin

Ugh!

 

Jim LaValle

Nicotinamide riboside.

 

Jamie Martin

Riboside! I added an N-O in there. side. Okay, we got it, that’s N-R. That’s what we’re talking about there. Another one that you mentioned to us as we were prepping for this episode is synapsin. So talk about this and what it is. Does it fall into the category of like a more specific target or what does that look like?

 

Jim LaValle

Very specific target. It’s interesting. We started working with this specific extraction of ginseng 20 years ago. And we developed it as a actually a nasal spray for Corvette race team for them to be able to use it to help keep their core body temperature down. When you your core body temperature down when you’re racing, that means your reaction time is going to be better because when your core body temperature stays down, you have better brain coherence.

 

Well, there’s a lot of literature, about 160 different studies on ginsenoside R3, which is what’s in synapsin. And ginsenoside R3, it reduces what’s called microglial activation. So it calms down the immune system in the brain. That allows you to focus better, concentrate better. People take it because they, midday, they start to not be able to think quite as clearly.

 

And so they’re tired and this helps them to maintain that cognitive clarity during the course of the day by dampening that response and not allowing for what’s called the glutamate bridge to break. So in your neurons, you have this bridge and if you get really excited that glutamate and MDA bridge breaks and a bunch of calcium goes flying through there and that’s what creates the, uh-oh, now I’m anxious, now I’m not thinking clearly.

 

Jamie Martin

Okay, on that note, you mentioned like the inflammation, right? It’s kind of calming that piece of it. Is that also, you hear a little bit when it comes to cognitive conditions, like the neuroinflammation, like the brush fire that’s existing, is synapsing something that’s important about that?

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, that’s exactly it. Because what the neuroinflammation is, is microglial activation. So using this, it’s funny, I first learned about this from the professor from University of Beijing, China, who is the head of botanical medicine there. And he visited the University of Cincinnati where I was teaching natural compounds and, you know, writing my databases. And we started talking about this. And when he first showed it to me, was, I just, what are you talking about? Yeah, this is weird.

 

You know, because this is 20 plus years ago. I put it on a shelf. And then I started doing research on microglial activation. And this ginseng compounds keeps coming up. I literally, I almost felt like an idiot because I looked up behind me and that bottle was still there. But this guy was trying to tell me this five years ago. So that’s a really important compound because a lot of people complain of like cognitively not feeling as sharp by the end of the day. This really helps them. It just helps with focus, clarity, and attention. It’s very simple, but incredibly novel. Some preliminary data coming out on it that it shows much improved on reflex time and cognitive function in athletes. So we’ll see a full study, I think, coming out on shortly.

 

Jamie Martin

Awesome. Okay, another one you mentioned is LANDKIND. Tell me about this.

 

Jim LaValle

So exciting. So a lot of people haven’t heard of the Arctic challenge. But the Arctic challenge was four people rowing a thousand kilometers across the Arctic Ocean. And the record was 14 days. I end up helping a lot of these folks because one of them was a former US Special Forces officer and you know, I’ve worked with them for a long time. And then Jimmy Graham from the New Orleans Saints, ex, you know, going to be a Hall of Famer, pro football player, but he’s an acrobatic pilot. does endurance cycling. I this guy’s amazing, right? And then two members of the US road team. They did it in 10 days. They broke the record by four days.

 

Jamie Martin

When was this? how?

 

Jim LaValle

Just happened.

 

Jim LaValle

Just recently. This happened in July of 2025. And I had to oversee their labs and I had to look at their programming and what they were taking. LANDKIND was one of the compounds that we gave them because a group out of France had did a lot of research on this and it turns out that this improves your VO2 max, improves your tissue perfusion of oxygen into your tissue.

 

Jamie Martin

So essentially how quick how well you process the oxygen and feed it in.

 

Jim LaValle

Exactly. And in addition to that, it acts someone as a adaptogen for the brain, which means that you either are in allostasis, your brain’s in balance, the circuit breakers are all on, or you go into allostatic load. A circuit breaker or two gets flipped off and now all of sudden your immune system’s changing, your hormones are changing, your cognitive function’s changing. It helps to maintain allostasis. And so this was a fantastic compound and it was given in the clinical doses that were in the studies and when they were done their heart rates the next day Jimmy’s heart rate was 47 and he’s letting me share this by the way yeah and he’s he’s he’s posted about this so I’m not breaking any HIPAA or anything like that but it was amazing that his resting heart rate it didn’t go up a stitch.

 

Jamie Martin

And after pushing themselves for 10 days straight.

 

Jim LaValle

Exactly. Well, hour and a half, row, hour and a half to eat, sleep, and use your bathroom facilities. Then you get back up and row.

 

Jamie Martin

You just do that over and over.

 

Jim LaValle

Over and over for 10 days, four people. And so they were using the RG3 ginsenoside. They were using the LANDKIND. And they were using some other adaptogens like Cordyceps, which also helped with VO2 max. And some minerals, electrolytes, done. Stay hydrated and that was it. So I mean, LANDKIND I think is important because whether you’re training for an endurance event or you just want to get the most out of your workout, right? Take 60 milligrams of LANDKIND and this is one that people will feel it the very first time they chew it.

 

Jamie Martin

Oh, interesting. So it’s a tablet, you chew it.

 

Jim LaValle

30 minutes later you work out and you will feel a significant difference. Same thing on that synapsin and there’s another one called Synapsin Pro. They chew it and they’ll notice a difference within, in some cases, five minutes. They feel more cognitive clarity without being a stimulant. There’s no caffeine in that. It’s not a stimulant. It’s creating brain coherence.

 

Jamie Martin

Well, and to your point, I mean, and just to clarify, too, like, LANDKIND, I think you mentioned, and tell me if I’m wrong, rhodiola extract is kind of —

 

Jim LaValle

It’s a 98% salidroside. So typically if you get rhodiola, say you buy an adaptogen and it’s got a quality rhodiola in it, 500 milligrams, but it will be a 5% salidroside. This is a 98% salidroside. So they focused all the properties of rhodiola and concentrated it. So it makes it a unique compound. And this is what I look for.

 

You know, I’m helping with guiding supplementation and programming along with, you know, Paul Kriegler and Anika Christ at you know, at Life Time who’ve been fantastic. I’m looking for that high end product that you see works. Cause there’s still a lot of products out there that kind of got launched into the market and they got great studies. Well, then you use it and it’s like, well, okay. It didn’t do much for me.

 

Jamie Martin

Maybe, maybe not, right.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, maybe not. These are, we really are cherry picking things that are gonna have a big impact on your performance, whether it’s related to working out or it’s just related to your general health. It’s related to when you’re at work and you need to be sharp, but you don’t wanna do caffeine or don’t do too much caffeine. These are the kind of things that we’re looking for to be novel. Just like the nicotinamide riboside, everyone is into NAD now.

 

But we just don’t want to be into NAD and make up some formula, may or may not have benefit. This is proven, nicotinamide riboside is a proven compound with multiple studies showing that it improves NAD levels.

 

Jamie Martin

And that’s where you’re kind leaning into that with the LTH team.

 

Jim LaValle

Always.

 

Jamie Martin

Well, and even to that point, like thinking about the synapsin and some of those, is that an all, I mean, you just said like, is it an alternative to your afternoon coffee after that post lunch dip, you know, that two o’clock hour when it’s like, like, I just got to get through the end of the day. It’s one of those things that I’ve heard people anecdotally talk about, like how it’s helped them be a little bit more productive or just kind of stay focused for a little bit longer to kind of make that final push through the day too.

 

Jim LaValle

No, that’s exactly right. And you know, it’s interesting when people do it in the morning, it usually lasts. All day. you don’t dip.  Yeah, it works through the course of the day. Now, the difference being is, if you eat a real heavy lunch, you know, you’re going to eat a pizza. All those carbs. Lots of carbs and the blood sugar goes up and crashes down. Might be a different story. But yeah, it actually has been pretty interesting to see the you know, kind of how that compound has grown out there, you know, and everything from the athlete side, know, teams using it for TBIs to just, you know, cognitive function and the ability to focus.

 

Jamie Martin

Interesting. One that you also mentioned to us, which you kind of described as next level as well, is one of LTH’s products, Dream, which is a sleep support.

 

Jim LaValle

Here’s why I love dream. Sometimes it’s more about how you create a formula from quality ingredients that are already well studied. And dream, think is a great example of that, that it has phosphatidylserine in it, which is very good for turning your parasympathetic nervous system on which dampens your sympathetic nervous system, is gonna help you to feel more calm to go to sleep. And it’s in clinical dose. It has three different kinds of magnesium in it, which is going to help because you want magnesium at night to calm the nervous system. And the magnesium threonate that’s in there is actually very specific for helping to soothe the brain.

 

And then you have ashwagandha and a standardized extract of ashwagandha specific for dampening stress response and helping you to release that corticotropin releasing hormone that you have too much of because you took on too much during the day. So you want to dampen that, allow the melatonin to come out because that also is going to be what helps you to release your growth hormone. And then it has some theanine in it, I mean, theanine, I I think everybody should take a bath in theanine. mean, that’s amazing.

 

Jamie Martin

Is that a possibility?

 

Jim LaValle

It actually is. You could do it because there’s no adverse event limit with theanine. And what I like about theanine is it blocks glutamate. when you block glutamate, which is an excitatory neurotransmitter, it lets you build GABA and build dopamine so that you’re able to focus and think more clearly and feel calm. And it also at nighttime, it helps with alpha waves so that you get into that restful how your brain is producing those frequencies. your brain producing those nighttime frequencies is going to help you to sleep through the night. And so, you know, I think this is that that situation of a compound that is a great mixture or blend to create an outcome.

 

Jamie Martin

It’s awesome. And it’s really, again, targeted towards supportive sleep, supporting sleep and better sleep ideally. But to that point, that one is not. You said it, because it’s got the three mag and that combination, it’s not including melatonin in it, but it supports the release of melatonin.

 

Jim LaValle

It’s what it’s doing is it’s supporting the release of melatonin and also helping that circadian pattern come back so that you aren’t running at full tilt white tiger all that next day. And you can always add a little melatonin to it. If you needed to. If you needed to, you can use the liquid melatonin. Do three milligrams, six milligrams. But Dream’s interesting. It’s a great product. I think it’s that, once again, it’s that thought of specific target. How do we build a product around it that’s gonna meet that target? And then so that people can feel it.

 

Jamie Martin

That makes sense. So two other quick things I know we want to touch on. You’ve mentioned adaptogens a couple of times, and I think it’s really important to just define what adaptogens are so everyone understands. They’re actually pretty long used, they’re kind of that botanical side of things that you mentioned where you’ve done some study.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, so adaptogens are basically botanicals that help your body cope with stress. So there’s two different ways to think of that. Once you’re really stressed out, well then you’re kind of past an adaptogen and you think of things like theanine or Relora or holy basil, which is thought of as an adaptogen, but actually can do a little bit more. But adaptogens are meant to keep your body resilient to stress.

 

So if you’re somebody that’s running hard, but you feel good. You’re working out, your job is productive, you’re just on all cylinders, but you’re pushing your body hard. Adaptogens are ideal. So since the beginning of time, of recorded medical history, in every culture, every culture, adaptogens were the most revered plants in all of their medical systems. And that’s because you think of it, in traditional cultures, they recognize stress being the you know, a big component of why people got sick. Now what we do and what we’ve done in the past and why I adaptogens are important to talk about is now people run really hard, but they run really hard with no support and then they break. And when they break, that means they need to be on a drug for depression or a drug for anxiety, drug for sleep. Instead, it would be better to keep it moving. Keep it moving with using an adaptogen where you you’re your nervous system from the brain, because they all work at the level of the brain. To keep the HPA axis, hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis, to keep it in bounds, functioning the way it should. And that’s how you also maximize your ability to recover for your next workout using adaptogens.

 

Jamie Martin

In some ways, they’re a proactive tool that you could be using so you don’t get to that point of dysregulation.

 

Jim LaValle

I’ve used adaptogens for years just for that. Be proactive, keep your nervous system strong, and be able to work out better. mean, what’s nothing wrong with being able to get better gains?

 

Jamie Martin

Right. Another category that we haven’t talked about yet, but is often talked about at Life Time is like detox. You we talk regularly about the detox. We have a 14 day D.TOX program at Life Time. But what about any innovations or kind of next gen things in the detox space?

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, I mean, think, you know, first of all, the D.TOX two-week kit, I think people should be doing that, you know, every so often, whatever is going to fit for them, because it is creating kind of an environment that helps the body to unload, you know, what it’s metabolically accumulated over the last 60, 90 days, 120 days, right?

 

But I think with detoxification, what we’re finding out is that, you know, compounds that help phase one and phase two detoxification things, you know like artichoke extract which isn’t really used that much here in the U.S. We don’t see a lot of artichoke extract artichoke extract fantastic for helping liver gallbladder detoxification.

 

You know herbs like shatavari or solidago another couple of herbs fantastic for kidney function because we’re seeing more and people where their kidney functions are starting to falter at earlier ages. And, you know, these are herbs that can really help the kidneys to maintain their integrity. Now, there’s other innovations like the next gen subs BPC, you know, tablets, right, which is a peptide.

 

Jamie Martin

I was going say that was one of peptides we talked about.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, KPV, another peptide that is a liposomal tablet that can be talked about. KPV for decreasing the mucosal cells ability to be able to have unregulated inflammation instead getting it back into regulated inflammation. So those are really interesting as well. I think in general, you when you, when you start to look at all these different systems, like it used to be if you had kidney disease, if your kidney filtration was measured and you had a GFR of 55, well, you’re just gonna have to live with it. Now we’re seeing through nutraceuticals, using botanicals, that you can get tremendous benefit. And I have to say one more, kyolic aged garlic extract, I there’s studies on that, five separate studies and this is UCLA School Cardiology by the president of the Interventional Cardiology Society.

 

Jamie Martin

I think I have this in the drawer at home that my husband is taking. I’m like, that sounds familiar.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, I mean hundreds of studies. Yeah. Reduces vulnerable plaque in your arteries. Improves blood pressure. Five different, 11 point drop in blood pressure systolic, six point diastolic. Reduces, you know, in people that were overweight, it reduced inflammatory cytokine signaling. It helps with peripheral blood flow.

 

It’s got a multitude of benefits and you know that’s the one thing about advanced supplementation when I’ve always been passionate about is there’s compounds out there that will change your life and really help you to live a healthier life because one of the mistakes I think we make as we try to make drugs fit a little bit more into the prevention longevity side and there’s a little bit of a dual-edged sword on that because we’re not quite sure whereas a lot of these botanicals and nutrients have been around for generations that have been utilized.

 

Jamie Martin

Well, and I kind of think it’s ironic in some ways. Like we’re talking about next-gen supplements, but really it’s leaning in many ways back on ancient knowledge, medicine, wisdom that’s been there for quite some time. So it’s kind of the integration of them both.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, and it’s the modern extraction. What I always talk about is modern science meets traditional botanical medicine. So there’s improvements in the way we can make the product bioavailable, extract, and concentrate the ingredient to get more effect. Because we’ve got a lot more faith in us than what a person had 2,000 years ago. We of environmental burden and stress and blue light and . . .

 

Jamie Martin

All the things.

 

Jim LaValle

Yeah, everything.

 

Jamie Martin

My gosh. Well, Jim, this is super interesting. Any final thoughts before we wrap up this one?

 

Jim LaValle

If you’re going to consider taking supplementation, first of all, make sure you can trust the brand. And that’s why I love the LTH brand. You can trust it. Secondly, start to target what your goal is because instead of having an ever-ending growing pantry case full of pills that you tried for three weeks and stopped, start to really hone in on what your needs are. And I think one of the ways that you can do that is go and so to a MIORA at Life Time, get your blood worked up, take a look at what is needed and the providers there, so the nurse practitioners, the medical directors, the dieticians can help refine your approach so that you’re taking things that actually have an impact on you. So I think that’s important that that’s what you can do too.

 

Jamie Martin

Yep, I think that’s huge. think it’s, can help you, again, get more narrowed in on what’s right for you. Individualization, as always. Also timing, think is super interesting, because I know I’ve worked through that as well. It’s like, what’s the right time to make the most of this? And combination. So, all right, Jim, thank you so much.

 

Jim LaValle

Yep, great being here.