Food, Supplements, Exercise, Medications and Peptides: Where Should You Start?

We have never had access to more health information—or more interventions. 

Nutrition. 

Vitamins and minerals. 

Nutraceuticals. 

Exercise. 

Lifestyle interventions. 

Medications. 

Hormones. 

Peptides. 

And increasingly, experimental approaches attracting considerable attention online. 

The problem is no longer simply finding an intervention. 

The challenge is knowing which intervention deserves priority. 

Start with the goal 

One of the biggest mistakes I see in health information is asking: 

“What is the best supplement?” 

There is no meaningful answer without first asking: 

Best for what? 

The nutritional strategy that may be appropriate for fat loss isn't necessarily the strategy I would prioritise for muscle building, sleep, cognitive performance, recovery, or healthy ageing. 

The same applies to supplements, exercise, and medications. 

Build the foundation first 

For most people, the foundation remains remarkably unglamorous: 

Food → nutrients → movement → sleep → behaviour. 

These interventions don't attract the same attention as the newest molecule discussed online, but they frequently determine whether everything else works properly. 

Only after establishing those foundations, does it make sense to ask whether additional interventions may provide meaningful benefit. 

Evidence should matter 

Another principle I use is separating interventions into broad levels of evidence. 

Some interventions have decades of human research behind them. 

Others have promising preliminary human evidence. 

And others remain genuinely experimental. 

These categories should not be treated as equivalent. 

Something being new does not make it better. 

But something being new doesn't automatically make it worthless either. 

The important thing is understanding where it sits on the evidence spectrum. 

Personalisation comes next 

Finally, we need to ask whether an intervention is appropriate for the individual. 

That may depend on: 

health goals  

age  

medications  

medical history  

laboratory findings  

body composition  

physical capacity  

sleep  

nutrition  

contraindications.  

This is why I'm increasingly interested in moving healthcare away from endless lists of “healthy things” and toward a more structured question: 

What is your goal, what does the evidence support, and what should you prioritise next? 

That question is much more powerful than simply asking what's popular. 

Dr D Michael Elliott MSc. D.C. CFMP