How Did Peter Attia Leave Most Supplements Unjustified?

Peter Attia gives patients who arrive on a long supplement list a homework exercise: answer seven questions for every supplement. He calls the exercise another Peter principle. The result is sobering. A lot of patients come back and report that they cannot produce any reason, along a rigorous line of thinking, for taking 80 percent of the supplements.

At intake, Attia asks which drugs and supplements a person takes. Some say they take nothing and want Attia in charge of the plan. Others need extra pages of documentation because they travel with a suitcase of pills that rattles through an airport. Attia hands them a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet walks through the logic of why the patient takes each molecule. After patients work through the spreadsheet, many say they have no defensible reason for 80 percent of the list.

Attia uses the seven questions to force an explicit reason for each molecule. Patients who finish the spreadsheet often find that a rigorous line of thinking leaves 80 percent of what they walked in taking without a justification.