If you look at the history of vitamins, they were all discovered between 1910 and 1948. Casimir Funk invented the idea and called them “vital amines.” The thing is they ain’t all amines: Vitamin C isn’t, nor is B5 or B7 (I think they’re amides; I never took organic chemistry, sorry not sorry). We’ll stick with the “your body needs it” definition. Vitamins were originally discovered to prevent disease, but also to optimize health. I don’t think there is any acute disease associated with Vitamin-D deficiency (which most indoors people have), though it makes you pretty unhealthy if you don’t have enough of it. Or, conversely, helps you to remain pretty healthy if you have a good amount of it. The fact that there exists such powerful vitamins without acute deficiency syndrome rather indicates that there may be* many such cases*. Here are a few inexpert suggestions for consideration by people who get paid to think about such things. These are all well-known substances with well-documented effects; I’m not suggesting anything esoteric. Some of ’em I take myself, because spending a few bucks at the supplement shop is cheaper than massive medical intervention later in life, and there’s no obvious downsides other than purity/adulterant concerns (which are ubiquitous with anything you put in your mouth anyway).

Spermidine: yes, shut up about the name, Beavis. This is a substance naturally occurring in many healthy foods: wheat germ, meats, cheeses, mushrooms, various kinds of beans, oats. People who get a lot of it live longer: high levels of it have an antiaging effect in animals and human; especially heart and brain tissue. You can do pretty well here without supplements; my diet contains large amounts of it (I like beans, fruits and oats). On the other hand I’m willing to bet people who survive on candy and pizza rolls are lacking in it. It wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a RDA in. The Swedes are ahead of the US here, and actually do have a RDA of around 25-30mg which is considerably more than most people get.

CoE-Q10. This is a substance with strong healthspan effects; it does useful stuff for your mitochondria, in particular for those in your heart. Like many non-essential amino acids and other nutrients, the body can synthesize this itself, and it’s in lots of foods (beef, peanuts, organ meats), but as people get older some supplementation may be helpful. Funk would be pleased as it appears to be an amine. It appears to be cardioprotective, has antioxidant effects, is anti-inflammatory, is acutely cardioprotective, increases sperm motility, might have an anti-cancer effect, and has strong anti-aging properties. Considering most people drop dead of heart disease, it’s a no-brainer addition to your supplement stack as you get older: ubiquinol is more easily absorbed than ubiquinone, so make sure you get that one. If your quack has you on statins, you should take this stuff as statins prevent your body from making its own.

Menaquinone-7: yes, it’s part of the K vitamin family and other K vitamins might get turned into this in your gut, but it’s another one that has acute health benefits. K vitamins are good for the hormones, longevity, cancer prevention,fat loss, bone health and over all vitality. MK-7 is particularly exciting as it appears to reverse atherosclerosis, and probably has all the other benefits observed in other K variants. Japanese people live a long time, particularly if they eat this very strange food called natto (rotten soybeans) which is extremely high in it. Nattokinase is an unrelated enzyme from natto which may also have cardioprotective effects. I take ’em both because they’re cheap and easily found.

Ergothioneine: this is one I found searching the scholarly research. It’s an oddball non-essential amino acid related to histidine. You can find it in oats, beans, mushrooms and organ meats. It’s non-essential, but it can’t be made in the body, and your tissues seem to require it. It appears to have anti-aging properties: good for skin, joints, circulatory system, aerobic capacity and brain. It might even be good for your testicles. Best source of it is mushrooms; a daily mushroom or two will give you plenty of the stuff. There are also some oddball asian fermented foods with significant quantities. Good review here.

Boron: there is no USRDA on this mineral, but there probably should be, at least for older people. Try it and see; you will almost certainly notice if you’re older and short of it. This paper lists some of the benefits. Good for the brain, the hormones, antioxidant effects, magnesium absorption (everyone who sweats on occasion from exercise or Sauna should probably get some extra magnesium), bone health, wound healing. Its present in some fruits, but topping up with a pill or two on occasion is a good idea.

Sunlight: since they created a cheap vitamin-D blood test, pretty much everyone gets scolded for being short of it, generally from being out of the sun. In high latitudes it can’t be helped in wintertime, so people should supplement, but there’s other things about the sun which make us healthy. At one point in my sojurn in New Hampshire I realized I wasn’t getting much bright light in my day to day, so I bought myself a “corn cob light” -a sort of artificial sun. I assume the body’s melatonin system needs some bright light from time to time to regulate properly; the effect was dramatic. A few minutes in the morning wakes me up properly. Probably other effects as well.

L-Carnosine: this is a simple dipeptide which is present in meats. So, this is mostly something for the vegetarians to consider. Also made in the human body, but rate limited by beta-alanine which is relatively rare in food (there’s 3.2g of beta-alanine in a kilo of beef: it’s higher in organ meats). This is a very cool dipeptide; it has a sort of buffering effect on muscular exertion the way creatine does. It also is anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, cardio-protective, anti-diabetic, anti-cancer, heavy-metal chelating, neuroprotective and overall anti-aging effects. One of the interesting effects is anti-glycation: glycation is protein degradation by having excessive sugar hanging around: why fat people often have terrible skin, but it is a problem which is more than skin-deep: other organs are also negatively effected by glycation. They’re developing an eyedrop form of this substance for the treatment of cataracts and other eye diseases, which is amazing to me. L-carnosine can also be used as a food preservative, which begs the question of “why isn’t it being used as a food preservative?”

Not vitamins, but cool anyway:

Astaxanthin -pretty difficult to get from your diet unless you like salmon or flamingo meat, but very good for you. This is the red coloring in salmon and crab and other seafoods; it comes from algae eaten by sea beasties. Like many of the things listed here, it is an antioxidant, which seems to have decent healthspan effects on skin, cardiovascular system, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer effects, and may help immune response, neural health, eye health and exercise recovery. I don’t know why they don’t just make this the new FDC-red food coloring; seems to be few downsides. As a nice side effect, it’s a decent 5-alpha reductase inhibitor, and it’s a lot better for you than finasteride. I suppose supplementation with it could be an issue if they made it chemically (since racemic mixtures don’t occur in nature), but it mostly seems to be extracted from yeast. This one is kind of a pain in the ass to source where I live, but it’s one I really like for the broad spectrum effects and I started taking it daily this year.

Curcumin -again, unless you like Indian food, you’re probably not getting much of this from a normal diet. Considering the insane things that OTC painkillers do to people, folks should consider this as an alternative. It apparently works just as well, and doesn’t upset your stomach. Unlike most OTC painkillers, this stuff is actively good for you. Much like the litanies above: anti-oxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-inflammatory, cancer protective, cardio protective, neuro-protective, and general anti-aging properties. Downside to the stuff is it isn’t real bioavailable (as you can tell the next day after a late night curry). Eating it with pepper helps; most supplements include piperine from pepper. I don’t take this regularly, but I do take it for aches and pains and it has the required effects.

Betaine is an old school supplement mostly touted as a digestive aid in HCL form. It’s a methyl donor, like B-vitamins and creatine (sort of). Some people have a genetic condition where they lack methylation capacity. As it turns out this supplement by itself may be anabolic and increase testosterone. Might also help burn fat. Something I occasionally take after a heavy meat meal the way old time bodybuilders took it. If nothing else it seems to aid digestion.