Nutritional Superheroes and their Sidekicks

Junior partners that secretly do half of the superhero work.

To those of us who appreciate the superhero universe, sidekicks are actually kind of off putting, if not downright embarrassing. Most of us would turn green – and not from being bombarded by gamma rays – if Robin, Bucky Barnes (the original comic-book version), Speedy, or even Krypto the super dog got their own DC or Marvel Universe feature-length film.

Infinitely more palatable, literally and figuratively, are nutritional sidekicks. The following representatives of this little appreciated clan – when allowed to participate – make their senior partners downright heroic.

Superhero: Salad

Sidekick: Full-Fat Salad Dressing

Like most nutrition folk, I've long advocated using low or non-fat salad dressing on salads. Sure, mostly empty calories. Ensuing fatness and all that.

Trouble is, we've all been thinking one dimensionally. We all forgot that food and the substances it contains don't exist in a vacuum. You can't dump a bunch of chemicals in a beaker, churn them up with some acid, and expect that they'd all float around without somehow affecting each other. Likewise, you can't assume our digestive systems are all-powerful and absorb everything we eat with 100% efficiency.

In the case of salads, the problem has to do with the absorption of their vitamins and nutrients, many of which, including a wide array of carotenoids and polyphenols, are fat-soluble. That means they're best absorbed when eaten with some fat.

If, however, we neglect to ingest them with fat, as we largely do when we use non-fat salad dressing, many of those coveted nutrients just sit in our intestines. They get the ticket to gastrointestinal Disneyland but they don't get to go on any rides and then they're forced to ride out on the back of Poop-Dumbo.

I'm not saying you need to drown your salad in full-fat dressing. After all, most are really calorically dense. Just a tablespoon should do.

Superhero: Coffee

Sidekick: Cocoa/Cacao

You undoubtedly know all about coffee's beneficial effects on the brain and the body. It's a pretty good superhero all on its own, but adding just 2-3 grams of undutched (non-alkalized) cocoa powder to it tamps down on coffee's anxiety-producing effects while bolstering its cognition-enhancing effects. You get laser-like focus and more smarts without the jitters.

What happens is that two cocoa phytochemicals – theobromine and epicatechin – bind to adenosine and benzodiazepene receptors in the body, thereby reducing anxiety and improving motivation, mood, attention, and error rates.

But forget all that. Cocoa leads in an increase in the body’s production of nitric oxide, a chemical that punches open blood vessels and results in improved blood flow, which in turn leads to reduced blood pressure and erections that rival Thor’s hammer in rigidity.

I think all that's pretty cool, but there's something that works better than cocoa powder and that's cacao, which is the least processed form of cocoa -- it hasn't yet been exposed to high temperatures and a chemical assault. As such, it's nutritive qualities and coffee-supercharging powers are more formidable than those of cocoa.

To supercharge your coffee, add 2-3 grams (about a teaspoon) of cacao. It contains more fat than cocoa powder does, so it should mix into your coffee fairly well. It also makes a great, chocolaty, polyphenol-packed addition to your protein shake, kefir, yogurt, cereal milk, or anything else you might want to jazz up.

Unroasted and cold-pressed cacao, while not common, is still pretty easy to find. Amazon offers an 8-ounce bag of the Navitas brand of organic cacao for a little over 10 bucks.

Superhero: Collagen

Sidekick: Vitamin C

Collagen has taken the joint-restoration mantle from glucosamine and its sidekick, chondritin. There's good reason for it, too. Several studies have shown collagen supplementation to increase blood levels of collagen propeptides, which indicates that the body is churning out collagen and hopefully trowelling it onto those frayed joints.

Whether collagen is effective simply because it has much higher levels of the amino acid glycine than most other protein sources isn't currently known. However, we do know that taking just 50 mg. of vitamin C with your collagen doubles the amount of collagen propeptides found in the blood in less than an hour.

Without vitamin C, collagen is like one of those lame Avengers with questionable or downright undiscernible super powers, like Hawkeye or Black Widow. Put the two together, though, and you've got yourself a Spiderman or Captain America.

The main study that brought this phenomenon to light combined 15 grams of collagen from gelatin and 50 mg. of vitamin C powder, but it's unlikely you need to be so precise. My recommendation would be to just pop a 250 mg. tablet/capsule of vitamin C and follow it up immediately with your 15 to 20-gram serving of collagen dissolved in water, coffee, or tea (or whatever delivery system you use).

Take it before you work out as an insurance policy on joint health, or use it every day for things like improved hair quality and better skin.

Superhero: Turmeric

Sidekick: Black Pepper

This is an unusual superhero partnership in that the “hero,” specifically turmeric, is pretty much useless as a superhero on its own. Instead, it sorely needs its sidekick to do heroic things.

Before I explain that, let me throw a little turmeric info at you. It’s currently a darling of all health-minded granola crunchers in the U.S, even though people in India have been using it for its healthful attributes for hundreds if not thousands of years. Earnest but not completely informed Americans are using it to make tea, milk, or smoothies, or they’re just dumping it in rice, soups, curries, or yogurts.

They’re doing this because turmeric purportedly has a host of beneficial effects, everything from acting like a COX-2 inhibitor (the same way various prescription medicines work) for the treatment of pain, to helping fight cancer, to aiding in digestion, and to thwarting mosquito borne illnesses.

While turmeric contains lots of interesting and potentially beneficial phytochemicals (polyphenols, to be specific), the key compound -- the one thought to do all the medical magic – is known as curcumin. (Truthfully, there are several curcuminoids that are healthful, but we collectively call them curcumin.)

Unfortunately, curcumin is like the son who grew up and never moved out, preferring instead to loll around the house and not contribute anything to the welfare of the home. In short, curcumin refuses to be digested, therefore making it pretty much a waste of time to add it to any food.

That’s why, as a hero, it’s kind of like Blaster, the mindless hulk from “Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome”. Without “Master” to ride on his shoulders and direct his actions, he’s largely harmless.

Enter curcumin’s “Master”: Piperine.

Piperine is an ingredient found in black pepper. It’s an alkaloid like capsaicin, the burns-your-mouth ingredient found in cayenne pepper, but unlike other alkaloids, piperine has a super power in that it increases the absorption of curcumin.

By how much? Well, some studies show that it can increase curcumin absorption up to 2,000%.

Further, piperine inhibits hepatic and intestinal glucuronidation (a process by which the liver removes substances from the body), thus increasing serum concentration of curcumin.

So, if you’re using turmeric, always add some black pepper to the mix. Unfortunately, I can’t offer a specific dosage of black pepper – no one really knows.

My recommendation would be to add as much to your turmeric-containing food or drink that your palate or gut can tolerate.

Superhero: Vitamin D

Sidekick: Magnesium

Vitamin D is in the spotlight more than it's ever been, but doctors and patients are neglecting a pretty important nutritional fact of life: Vitamin D doesn't even bother to get up in the morning and put its pants on if magnesium isn't there to exhort it on.

You can practically swallow half a bottle of vitamin D a day and you won't have much luck in raising blood levels if sufficient amounts of magnesium aren't around.

Now, truth be told, calcium is equally important to vitamin D, but because of a complicated cascade of historical and economic factors, Americans take in a hell of a lot more calcium every day than they do magnesium. The problem is that having a high calcium-to-magnesium ratio (as the majority of Americans do) cripples the body's ability to transport, synthesize, and activate vitamin D.

The end result of this imbalance is vitamin D deficiency, or at the very least, a vitamin D insufficiency.

This undesirable calcium/magnesium ratio also allows calcium to turn your normally pliable coronary blood vessels into calcified tunnels through which your cardiac surgeon has to go spelunking to save your life.

So here's what to do: Take between 2,000 and 5,000 IU of vitamin D a day, just before a fatty meal (dietary fat helps with absorption). Then, to ensure that the vitamin D gets out of bed, take between 400 and 500 mg. of magnesium, also with a meal (as it may cause upset stomach otherwise).

If you're an athlete and you sweat a lot (as magnesium leeches out of the body through sweat), take an additional dose with a separate meal.

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