1131 – Enhance your brain power: Tom talks Smarter Brains

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

This transcript is Episode 1131 of “Screw the Commute,” titled “Smarter Brains.” Tom Antion discusses brain supplements from a skeptical, consumer-protection angle, emphasizing that he is not giving medical advice but wants listeners to understand what may be useful versus what may be hype.
The main message is that many “brain supplement” products promise things like laser focus, photographic memory, clarity, or sharper thinking, but many claims are exaggerated or unsupported. Tom warns that the supplement industry is huge, poorly scrutinized, and full of products that may be ineffective, contaminated, or misleadingly marketed.
He strongly recommends looking for third-party testing before trusting a supplement. He mentions certifications or testing organizations such as NSF, USP, ConsumerLab, and IFOS for fish oil. He explains that a company-produced certificate of analysis is less trustworthy than one from an independent lab.
He then highlights a few supplements with more evidence behind them:
Omega-3 fish oil
He says omega-3s, especially DHA, are important for long-term brain health. He discusses the omega-3 index, testing through OmegaQuant, and the idea that good-quality fish oil may sometimes be preferable to eating fish because of concerns about mercury, microplastics, and contamination.
Creatine monohydrate
He describes creatine as one of the most studied supplements, commonly associated with muscle performance but increasingly discussed for brain energy, memory, mental fatigue, and cognitive performance. He notes that it is inexpensive and generally viewed as having few downsides when used properly.
Caffeine plus L-theanine
He mentions this combination as something that may help alertness and focus more immediately, with L-theanine naturally found in tea.
The episode repeatedly returns to the theme: do not fall for hype. Tom urges listeners to be skeptical of miracle claims, TikTok trends, vague “product of USA” or “product of Italy” labeling, and products that may contain fillers, pesticides, heavy metals, or other contaminants.
He closes by tying mental sharpness to business success and promotes his mentor program and school, saying practical skills can be more valuable than expensive traditional education. Overall, the episode is a consumer-warning-style overview of brain supplements, with cautious support for a few better-researched options and a strong emphasis on quality control.

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Episode 1131 – Smarter Brains
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.
[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1131 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to make your brains smarter. Okay, smarter brains is what we're talking about today. Hoping this episode 1130, that was something that happened to me. That was just one of the most outstanding pieces of customer service from an unexpected source that I've had in a long time. All right, let's see. Hope you didn't forget to download a copy of our automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Version 3.0 is the latest. I'm going to start working on 4.0 here shortly. And the only thing different about 3.0 is if you see me talking about short keys, which has saved me literally millions of keystrokes, then it's now a browser extension, not a downloadable program. And let's see, check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by SCHEV. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about supplements. Now I'm not giving medical advice. I'm just trying to open your eyes to the pros and cons of supplements and what to avoid and how to see if something is really good, or if it's just a lot of hype. And I mean, the thing is, is everybody wants a smarter brain, right? All right. So you go into a supplement store and you're going to find products promising laser focus. Woo! Photographic memory, mental clarity, sharper thinking, and, and maybe where you where you left your car keys, I don't know, but see, the thing is, most brain supplements don't have enough evidence behind them to justify those claims.
[00:02:29] And there's tons of stories of the Federal Trade Commission fining companies for fraudulent claims. All you have to do is Google that and see this whole industry is worth billions of dollars. That's billion with a B. And if you believe the ads that everybody over 41 capsule away from becoming a genius. All right. But the problem is, is when scientists actually study these products. Many of the biggest name companies just are bsing you. Now, some supplements show some promise. Some have modest benefits, and many are just a waste of money. And some may be helpful for one person, but do absolutely nothing for you. All right. So the first thing. See, people close to me push supplements on me all the time. And I am. Mr. Skeptical. Having had that practical joke company for years, I know how easy it is to hoodwink people. Now, luckily I was doing it for fun and good purposes, but these companies just are doing it for money. So the first you know. So I resist this quite a bit. I know some goofy crap from China with some weird name supposed to, I don't know, make you into Superman. Uh, first of all, I don't trust it. Second of all, it's probably full of really bad stuff.
[00:04:05] Mercury. And I don't know all the other bad things. I'll talk about that in a minute. But. But I want to know that at least some third party has checked this out. And one of the things you look for. Well, let me tell you a trick that they pull on you. They might have product of USA on it makes you think, oh, it's good quality. Well, it might have have all these ingredients shipped in from all over the the Third world countries and then just packaged in the USA. That's another thing I just recently learned about, uh, stuff coming from Italy. So they ship a bunch of chemical, like olive oil. They ship a bunch of chemicals, chemicals from who knows where in tankers to Italy and then put it together in Italy and then say product of Italy. You think, oh, it must be really good olive oils from Italy. Well, it's all BS. Say so. One of the things you want to see is do they have a COAA certificate of analysis. And there's two levels of that. One is the company produced it itself. Well, how can you trust that it's the fox guarding the henhouse. So if you get a COA about the product, make sure it comes from some third party that's respected. And one of them is NSF. If you see NSF, then that's a highly respected place.
[00:05:36] Usp is another one U.S. Pharmacopeia. I think it's called Consumer Labs. Fish oil is ifos IFOS. And many of these places, they identify the ingredient in the product. They figure out the potency. Does it contain what it claims? Now, this is the one that I've always complained about, especially from China and all these other places. Heavy metals lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury. Does it have any contamination? Is there pesticides in it? Is there solvents? Is it rancid? And a lot of these companies will go and just pull random samples off shelves rather than the company sends them, you know, a perfect one, you know, that kind of stuff. So anyway, that's the first thing when you deal with supplements, don't fall for the hype that it's going to make you a genius overnight, or you're going to lose all this weight or all these things. Because probably if it sounds too good to be true, it's it is, it's too good to be true. And you might be just throwing in a lot of pesticides and heavy metals and all kinds of crap and fillers that you don't want. All right. So that's the first thing. The little intro to this thing. All right. So let's get into the good stuff of of the things that have the most, uh, evidence behind them to justify their claims. So we're going to try to separate the science from the snake oil, so to speak.
[00:07:14] So the first one it claims to have the best evidence is omega three fish oil. See, your brain is loaded with fat, especially a thing called DHA, which is one of the key omega three fatty acids. And people who consume more omega three seconds tend to have better long term brain health, but it's not overnight. Okay. And so I was, you know, I do follow this doctor, Rhonda Patrick, and she talked about the omega three index. And it's like a scale to just. And you're tested to see, okay, if you're omega three or less than 4%, that's considered bad. Almost as bad as smoking. Okay, 4 or 5 to 8% roughly is kind of the average. And then above 8% is really, really good. So I ordered a testing kit and I haven't got the results yet of my baseline. And the place is called Omega quant, OMEGAQUANT. And I just had to do a little pin prick on my finger and put a drop of blood in and send it to them. So I'm going to get back where I'm at on the scale, but these scales don't flip overnight, you know, so I'm supposed to retest in about four months to see how I'm doing. Adding more fish and sardines and salmon is supposed to be great, but even Doctor Patrick said you just can't trust things anymore, even if it claims to be wild caught and all that stuff.
[00:09:02] There's just so many microplastics. She actually, you know, reluctantly said, A good supplement is better now than eating salmon or something because it's not going to have all those bad things in it. So I've been adding fish and quality fish oil pills that have these certifications that I'm talking about, and I'm not trying to push any particular product on you. I'm just saying that, uh, I would suggest you check in and watch YouTube videos. She has, she's interviewed all over the place as Doctor Rhonda Patrick, and she's the one that turned me on to this. But omega three fish oil, uh, is supposed to have better long term brain health. And, and like I said, it's not overnight, but a lot of good things come from omega three fatty acids. And the test, I think, gives you your your omega six to omega three ratio, which is important and all that stuff, but they'll tell you all about how to interpret your results. All right. So that's one that's considered a great one, but getting it from just fish is risky because you're adding all that potential mercury and and so forth. Although sardines in small fish like little kippers and mackerel seems to be okay because it's the smallest tiny little fish, the sardines and the has the less chance of having mercury in it.
[00:10:37] And then I just used AI to find the best brands of sardines or whatever is available in your area. And, and so I've been adding those to my diet along with the fish oil pills. All right, Next one that's got enormous for, I don't know, 50 plus years of study is creatine and it's creatine monohydrate. And most people think it's just for bodybuilders. But that's totally wrong. It's it's you know, your brain uses an enormous amount of energy and creatine helps support that energy system. And lots of studies show benefits for memory, mental fatigue and, and cognitive performance. Now, the thing is, is for most of the studies until the last couple years have been just on muscle stuff and say, say, oh, you take five grams a day, 3 to 5g a day, and your muscles will work harder when you're working out. Doesn't do crap if you're not lifting weights. All right. But they started finding out that people that went up to maybe ten grams a day, that's like two scoops in anything. It'll mix with just about anything. You don't taste it at all. Started going up into the brain once the muscles got saturated. Again, this isn't overnight. So. So you go maybe a month of five grams a day to make sure it doesn't upset your stomach, and there doesn't appear to be any side effects from this.
[00:12:16] And then once it saturates your muscles, your brain starts sucking it up. This is all what they tell me. All right, I don't I'm no scientist, right. But this, uh, you know, is one of the longest studied things with no side effects, no downsides, no, no bad side effects. I should say the good side effects is they've starting to see it helps your brain. Right. And it's cheap, really cheap. And the the next one Is. Um, I haven't tried this at all yet, but this is one of the most studied ones is caffeine plus l theanine I think that's how you pronounce it. And this is one that you kind of feel right away. It boosts alertness. And now this can be, uh, l-theanine is found naturally in tea. So if you don't like coffee, you could could use tea, but, uh, and I don't know about that one as much, but that's listed as one of the best, right? So I'm not pushing any of this stuff on you. I'm just telling you in business, you need a sharp mind, just like you need in anything of your life. So there's no downside to this. As long as you get something that's pure that has what it claims in it, usually it's going to cost a little bit more, you know, because the purity means they're not just throwing cheap fillers in to sell you stuff like, say you go into any supplement store, there's thousands of different bottles on the shelf that have no scrutiny whatsoever.
[00:14:02] That's just what they say to you. And the Federal Trade Commission can't keep up with all of them. They come out every day of the week. And then some trend on TikTok says it's great. And they sell thousands and thousands of bottles and then disappear off the face of the earth when it never worked. All right. So, anyway, that's a little bit on smarter brains, which you need for business and you need and your whole life. And a lot of these add to longevity, you know, a lot of people that they've, uh, checked the oldest people on earth have seemed to eat a lot of fish. And, and they're not overweight. And they, they, their mind is still good. Alzheimer's and brain problems are a lot less than some of these, you can research all of this stuff. I'm just trying to get you to think about it. And hopefully your brain's good enough to not forget this episode. All right. So there you go. So if you want help with this and a million other things you need to be successful at online and in business, uh, check out my mentor program, greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia.
[00:15:17] But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning, and it'll probably save you a couple hundred grand of sending your kid to some BS, uh, college or university that just sucks money out of you like, like a vacuum cleaner. I mean, really, you know, some of the people that wrote books about this that are were college and education professors, they say, oh my God, it's just, it's just a money machine to rake you and put your students in debt and make interest in these big universities. Have these endowments worth hundreds of millions of dollars? Some in the bill. I mean, some of the bigger ones you've heard of in the billions of dollars, multi, multi, billions of dollars, and they keep raising their fees. Oh well, we need more administrators. You know, the education's no better right. It's just they want to hire more people and and a lot of them just indoctrinate you anyway. So mine will give you a skill and as little as six months that's in super high demand. Okay. So check it out. IMTCVA.org and you get a scholarship to it if you happen to be in my mentor program. So, check it out. All right, we'll catch you on the next episode. And hopefully all our brains will be a little smarter. See you later.