From 26 bottles to one routine

At one point, my wife and I counted the supplements in our house. There were 26 bottles between us.

None of them were unreasonable on their own. That was the problem. Each one had been bought to answer one question: am I getting enough of this? Nobody, least of all me, had asked whether they made sense together.

How the cupboard filled up

I was the athletic one growing up: multivitamins, creatine, protein powder, the usual stack. For years that felt like enough.

Then, somewhere in my thirties, things shifted. More aches. Less mobility. Slower to bounce back. Nothing dramatic. That's how ageing tends to arrive: one small thing fades, then another, so gradually that most of us shrug it off.

My response was the one most of us have. I added a bottle. Then another. Each new symptom, or each new headline, got its own supplement.

What the research said

As a doctor, I went looking for evidence, and one study reframed everything. Researchers followed 954 people and tracked 18 markers of ageing across the body's organ systems. Differences in how fast people were ageing were already visible in their twenties and thirties.¹

Two things struck me. Ageing starts long before we feel old. And it doesn't happen in one place; it happens across the body, in systems that depend on each other.

My cupboard was organised the opposite way: one bottle per part.

Why medicine teaches us to think in pieces

That made sense once I thought about how I'd been trained. Medical school teaches the body in pieces: by subject, or by organ. It's a useful way to learn. But the more the science develops, the clearer it is that the body behaves as a network. A bad night's sleep shows up in your appetite, your mood and your blood sugar the next day. Nothing stays in its box.

If the body is a network, the routine looking after it should be designed as one.

Building the routine I couldn't buy

I looked for a single product that covered daily nutrition and healthy ageing together. There wasn't one. The all-in-ones each covered part of it: a daily essential, an electrolyte, a night formula, a longevity blend. To get everything I'd have needed three or four of them, and as many subscriptions.

So I spent three years building it. One morning scoop, formulated across 12 systems of healthy ageing and how they connect. And, unexpectedly, a second formula. I'd taken magnesium and zinc before bed for years, because the body does important work overnight. A routine that only looked after the day was leaving half of it out.

What I'd say to anyone with a full cupboard

• Count your bottles. Then ask what each is for, and whether any overlap. Many of us double up on the same nutrients without knowing.
• Check the doses against the upper limits, across everything you take, not bottle by bottle.
• Be suspicious of more. A higher number on a label is not a better plan.
• Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you take medication, are pregnant, or have a health condition.

I won't pretend one routine fixes ageing. Nobody can honestly promise that. What I can say is that I'd rather look after my body as one connected thing than as 26 separate worries. That's what 4VIA is.