How Do I Know If I'm Taking Too Many Supplements?
15 Dec 2025 · 8 min
JJ Virgin answers whether you're taking too many supplements, arguing most people are undernourished instead. She recommends starting with a professional-grade multivitamin formula, then adding vitamin D and magnesium based on your deficiency levels, plus individualized supplements like probiotics or stress support based on your history and lab work.
Questions this episode answers
50–80 nanograms per milliliter.
About 500–1,000 milligrams per day.
Five times a week.
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I Know if I'm Taking Too Many Supplements? This is JJ Virgin, four time New.
York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert.
And Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert Janice from my Facebook community, the JJ Virgin Lifestyle community asks, how do you know if you're taking too many supplements or if some that you're taking are just ineffective or unnecessary? All right, Janice, I will be right back to answer this question.
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So I gotta tell you, I'm more concerned that you're not getting enough nutrients than you're getting too much. Now you do need to be careful with things like fat soluble vitamins and minerals because those store in your body and you can get too much. But by and large, after looking at so many nutrient tests over the years, things like organic acids and Spectracel and vitamin D tests, it is rare when I see someone who isn't deficient. And a lot of times these are people who are eating healthy, you know, they're already there, but they're just not able to get everything they need from their food, which we really can't. When you look at it, you know, it's not like a hundred years ago, 200 years ago, great soil, it's not demineralized. We're getting it fresh, we're eating right away, we're not under stress, we don't have toxins. So we have all this different stuff nowadays that days that that actually increases our needs for nutrients. So I think that, that the bottom line baseline that you need to do is make sure you're taking a high quality multivitamin mineral and antioxidant formula. And I really like to take a formula for this. And you're not going to get this in one pill a day, by the way. That's not possible. You can't get the amount of the minerals you need in that small of a pill. So it's going to be multiple pills. And I think this is the basic starting point because then you'll get a nice synergistic blend of all of these nutrients. So that's where I start, is that, and I really look for more of a professional grade high quality supplement. Do not skimp on your supplements.
Right?
There's places that you can skimp. Supplements are not one of them. I'd rather you take less and take high quality because you want to make sure that you're actually absorbing what you're taking. So that's the first baseline. The next thing that I look at is what are the things that even with taking a moderate amount in a multivitamin mineral antioxidant formula, what are things that classically we still are deficient in? And the ones that are big here are Vitamin D and magnesium, these are ones that we still need, tend to need more of. And I love to dose vitamin D by Labs doing a 25 hydroxy vitamin D and dosing vitamin D to get you to somewhere between 50 and 80 nanograms per milliliter. The other one that people tend to be deficient in is magnesium because magnesium is a big mineral and so I find most people are going to need somewhere between 500 and 1,000 milligrams and you just aren't going to get that in a multi. So I find those are two that I'm going to add on from there. And then after that, what else should you take? Well, this really depends on what's going on with you. If you've had issues with your gut microbiome, if you've been doing recently did antibiotics, then having a good pre and probiotic is great. I call my microbiome Balance Probiotic plus because it's got bacteriophages which act as prebiotics, which is fertilizer for the probiotics and then the bacteria in the gut and then probiotics. So that's one that I would look at as well. And if you're over the age of 35, 40, under any kind of stress, I think enzymes are something that you should be adding in as well. And generally it's, you know, two before a meal. Beyond that, again I look at what is going on with you and what else might you need? Might you need some help with extra stress support? Do you have some genetic things like the MTHFR gene that changes your methylation? Do you need some help with sleep? So do you need hormonal balance help? So beyond that then we start to look at what are all the other things that are going on and what might you need help with. But again, the last thing I really worry about, unless you're taking one nutrient in isolation for a long period of time at a high dose, that's either a fat soluble vitamin or a mineral. I don't tend to get as concerned about taking too much because what I've seen over the years is most people are not getting the nutrients they really need. So they're not able to have a really efficient, well running metabolism and an immune system that's super strong. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.
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