Dr. Weil's Personal Vitamin Routine

Natural Vitamin Supplements

A tour through Dr. Weil’s kitchen at his home in Tucson, Arizona, leads inevitably to the cabinet in which he keeps his vitamin supplements. It is surprisingly crowded. One might have expected that, after so many years of researching vitamins, minerals, herbs and mushroom preparations, Dr. Weil would not need so many bottles – he would have come up with his own “all-in-one” optimum vitamin supplement years ago.

And in a sense, he has. Dr. Weil takes a daily, core regimen consisting of a multivitamin and antioxidants. But aside from that, “I experiment,” he says, waving a hand at the collection of bottles. “It’s a constant process of trial and error. My body changes, and I read up on the medical literature, and then I adjust what I take. It’s not just for my own health, but also to give me some sense of what to recommend.”

Example: “I took a high quality caffeine-free green tea extract for a while,” Dr. Weil says, reasoning that it was a convenient way to get the benefits of green tea without the caffeine. But, “It was more pills to add to my routine, and the literature supported greater benefits by actually drinking green tea.”

So here’s what he takes now with his green tea at breakfast:

• A multivitamin/multimineral – one tablet
• CoEnzyme Q10 – one 60mg pill
• A mixed-mushroom supplement for immune support – one capsule
• Magnesium chelate – one 250mg pill
• Fish Oil – four 500mg capsules
• Acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha lipoic acid – one tablet

In the evening, with dinner, he takes:

• A multivitamin/multimineral – one tablet
• CoEnzyme Q10 – one 60mg pill
• Vitamin D – two 1,000mg pills
• Baby aspirin – two 80mg pills
• A mixed-mushroom supplement for immune support – one capsule
• Magnesium chelate – one 250mg pill
• Fish Oil – four 500mg capsules
• Acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha lipoic acid – one tablet

“And above all, I eat well, which is by far the best nutritional tactic for health,” he says.

Ultimately, Dr. Weil says, responsible self-experimentation is the best route for everyone, doctor and layperson alike. “All of us are different – our lifestyles, our sleep patterns, our diets, and our genetic makeups. What works for one person may not work for another, and what works best may change over time. As long as you take care to use vitamin supplement products that have inherently low toxicity and start at modest dosages, the ultimate arbiter of whether a supplement works must be your own experience.” Which is why, for many remedies, Dr. Weil’s advice is, quite simply: “Try it and see how you feel.”

Updated by: Andrew Weil, M.D., and Brian Becker, M.D., on March 4, 2014