The Brain-Body Fix: How Magnesium, Omega-3s, & Vitamin D Transform Your Health

Mark Hyman

May 12, 2025

Episode description

Up to 80% of people may be living with insufficient levels of vitamin D, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids—three essential nutrients involved in critical functions like immune defense, cardiovascular health, mood regulation, and brain function. Modern lifestyles—marked by nutrient-poor diets, low sun exposure, chronic stress, and overuse of medications—disrupt the body’s ability to absorb and maintain these key nutrients. Deficiencies often go undiagnosed due to outdated testing, yet they’re strongly linked to conditions like depression, fatigue, diabetes, and heart disease.

In this episode, I talk about, along with Andrew Huberman, how modern lifestyles and diets lead to widespread nutrient deficiencies and chronic disease—and how targeted nutrition and lifestyle changes can restore optimal health.

Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and tenured Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He has made numerous important contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function, and neural plasticity, which is the ability of our nervous system to rewire and learn new behaviors, skills, and cognitive functioning. Dr. Huberman is a McKnight Foundation and Pew Foundation Fellow and was awarded the Cogan Award in 2017, which is given to the scientist making the largest discoveries in the study of vision. His lab’s most recent work focuses on the influence of vision and respiration on human performance and brain states such as fear and courage. Work from the Huberman Laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine has been published in top journals including Nature, Science, and Cell and has been featured in TIME, BBC, Scientific American, Discover, and other top media outlets.

This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers.

Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10%.

Full-length episodes can be found here:

Do you need to take Vitamin D?


How Magnesium Deficiency Impacts Your HealthHow to Rewire Your Brain For Sleep

Episode description

Up to 80% of people may be living with insufficient levels of vitamin D, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids—three essential nutrients involved in critical functions like immune defense, cardiovascular health, mood regulation, and brain function. Modern lifestyles—marked by nutrient-poor diets, low sun exposure, chronic stress, and overuse of medications—disrupt the body’s ability to absorb and maintain these key nutrients. Deficiencies often go undiagnosed due to outdated testing, yet they’re strongly linked to conditions like depression, fatigue, diabetes, and heart disease.

In this episode, I talk about, along with Andrew Huberman, how modern lifestyles and diets lead to widespread nutrient deficiencies and chronic disease—and how targeted nutrition and lifestyle changes can restore optimal health.

Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and tenured Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He has made numerous important contributions to the fields of brain development, brain function, and neural plasticity, which is the ability of our nervous system to rewire and learn new behaviors, skills, and cognitive functioning. Dr. Huberman is a McKnight Foundation and Pew Foundation Fellow and was awarded the Cogan Award in 2017, which is given to the scientist making the largest discoveries in the study of vision. His lab’s most recent work focuses on the influence of vision and respiration on human performance and brain states such as fear and courage. Work from the Huberman Laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine has been published in top journals including Nature, Science, and Cell and has been featured in TIME, BBC, Scientific American, Discover, and other top media outlets.

This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers.

Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10%.

Full-length episodes can be found here:

Do you need to take Vitamin D?


How Magnesium Deficiency Impacts Your HealthHow to Rewire Your Brain For Sleep

Mindsip insights from this episode:

Reduce sugar intake to preserve magnesium levels

The more sugar and starch you eat, the more you increase the rate of magnesium excretion from your body through urine.

Choose red blood cell magnesium test for accurate assessment

The common serum magnesium test is a poor indicator of your body's total magnesium, and a red blood cell magnesium test is far more accurate.

Increase vitamin D intake as age reduces skin production

The average 70-year-old's skin creates only 25% of the vitamin D from sun exposure that a 20-year-old's does.

Avoid processed foods to protect gut neuron function

Eating processed foods can cause sensory neurons in your gut to retract, damaging your body's ability to sense what it needs and crave healthy foods.

Understand dopamine's role in driving cravings, not pleasure

Dopamine's primary role is to make you crave more of whatever triggered its release, rather than being a molecule of pleasure itself.

Take over 1,000 milligrams of EPA daily for antidepressant effects without side effects

Taking over 1,000 milligrams of EPA daily has an effect comparable to prescription antidepressants for some people, but without the side effects.

Maintain vitamin D levels above 50 ng/mL to prevent COVID deaths

One large Israeli study found there were zero deaths from COVID in patients who had vitamin D levels over 50 ng/mL.

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