The Top 25 Supplements for the Brain

The number one question that I get from people is “what supplements would you recommend?”. And relatedly, “what is your stack”?

I don’t really take that many supplements. I take a multi-vitamin and some prescribed medications. I’m risk averse when it comes to putting things into my body and concerned about the lack of regulation around supplements in the US.

I instead aim for a diet that contains the ingredients in the supplements. Omega-3s for instance- I eat at least 6 walnuts a day and try to choose seafood as my protein source. L-theanine? I incorporate green tea into my daily habits. Polyphenols- I have a daily berry smoothie.

The upside to eating brain healthy foods is that you don’t have much room left for junk food and highly processed food since you have a belly full of fruits, vegetables, and lean protein. I also enjoy cooking.

This weekend I took I deep dive into brain supplements to answer your questions. I started off by compiling a list of popular physician and neuroscientist brain supplement stacks- Dr. Peter Attia, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Dale Bredesen, and Dr. Dean Ornish.

Then I ranked them by evidence quality and by number of people recommending them (scientific consensus). Dale Bredesen had by far the most ingredients in his supplements, many of which don’t overlap with anyone else’s, and I am still going through them. Below are the top 25 brain supplements.

Please note: I googled the supplement stacks of these experts but did not listen to every podcast that they have put out so I may be missing some recommendations from them (apologies in advance). Take this list as an accurate but possibly incomplete list of what they are recommending.

For references for the mouse and human studies that contributed to the evidence level ranking of each supplement, please see my spreadsheet.

Please also note that I have check marks for many of these supplements but recommend that people get most of them from dietary sources instead of in pill form. More details about the foods and drinks that provide dietary sources are available on my spreadsheet.