It’s a hard pill — or 50 — to swallow.
Bahram Akradi, the 63-year-old CEO of Life Time health clubs, says he’s in such great shape that he goes toe-to-toe with men half hid age at the gym, and that’s due in part to his extreme supplement regimen.
Akradi recently admitted to taking 45 to 50 pills every morning, but he’s not exactly loading up his cart at his local pharmacy.
“At 63, I’m competing with 33-year-olds,” he told Business Insider.
“They say, ‘Tell me what you’re taking,’ and I’m like, ‘Well, what I’m taking is customized to me. You don’t need to be taking what I’m taking,’” he said.
For the past decade and a half, Akradi said, he’s been getting blood work done every 120 days — then, based on the results, he adjusts his supplement intake.
He has those supplements custom-made to include compounds of what he needs, whether that’s more zinc or less iron.
There are quite a few companies that create custom supplement packages and usually sell them in subscriptions, though most of them rely on a health and lifestyle quiz to select the ingredients.
Akradi, meanwhile, has his own longevity clinic, Moira, that opened last year near in Minneapolis. Signing up includes creating a “metabolic profile,” which tackles everything from vitamins and minerals to hormones to blood sugar.
Hyper-personalized healthcare has become quite trendy — for those who can afford it. Biohacker Bryan Johnson famously spends $2 million a year in the pursuit of aging backwards.
He, too, loads up on supplements: His morning routine alone includes 91 of them.
Among his go-tos are Vitamin C (for tissue growth and repair), cocoa flavanols (to boost brain and heart health), garlic (for cholesterol and immunity) and ashwagandha (for stress relief and lowering blood pressure).
According to his Netflix documentary “Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever,” he also takes CoQ10, lycopene, turmeric, taurine, and several vitamins.
While plenty of health-conscious people — and certainly most biohackers — swear by supplements, some experts are iffy on how much of a difference they really make outside of treating serious deficiencies.
“As long as a person’s diet falls within a wide range of what medical professionals consider balanced, it’s unlikely they would benefit from any dietary supplement,” said Dr. David Seres, MD, director of medical nutrition at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
“It’s human nature to try to have some control over your health and longevity,” says Seres. “But most people will never have any reason to need a supplement. Period.”
Dr. JoAnn Manson, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and professor of epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, also thinks diet should be people’s priority.
“Supplements are never a substitute for a balanced, healthful diet,” she told Harvard Health. “And they can be a distraction from healthy lifestyle practices that confer much greater benefits.”
Not all doctors agree that supplements have no value, though. Dr. Arielle Levitan — who founded her own vitamin company, Vous Vitamin — insists they are a good addition to many people’s routines.
“Most of us do need to supplement with a combination of vitamins, but the amounts and the vitamins vary from person to person based on their diets, lifestyle, and health considerations,” she told Self.
Regan La Testa, an iPEC-certified nutrition coach, previously told The Post that considering one’s personal needs when it comes to supplementation is important.
For example, “the needs of two women of the same age, same activity level, may vary based on whether they are menopausal versus continuing to menstruate.”
La Testa also agreed that a diet that focuses on protein, fruits and vegetables — and cuts down on processed food — should reduce the need for supplements.
