The Research
The evidence behind Altrek
Every ingredient had to answer two questions before I'd put it in the bottle.
Does it work in humans? Not in a dish, not in mice — a randomized trial in real people, at a dose I can actually fit in a capsule.
Is it safe to take for years? You're not taking this for six weeks. You're taking it for decades. So I want ingredients with years of safety data, in thousands of people, at doses at or above ours.
Both questions. Every ingredient. Below are the answers for all twelve, with the trials linked so you can check me. Most supplement companies say "clinically studied." I looked at the nine biggest names in this category — one of them actually links citations you can click. So here's mine.
One honest note up front: these are trials of the individual nutrients, not of the finished Altrek formula. Ingredient evidence isn't product evidence, and any brand pretending otherwise is overselling.
How to read the grades
I graded every claim by how strong the human evidence actually is. No hiding the weak ones.
| Grade | What it means |
|---|---|
| Strong | Multiple randomized human trials, or a meta-analysis, at a dose and in people like you. |
| Moderate | At least one good randomized human trial, with a dose or population caveat. |
| Limited | Human data exists but it's small, mixed, or in a different group than our customer. |
| Mechanistic | The biochemistry is solid, but there's no human outcome trial at our dose. I say so instead of rounding up. |
Lutein 10 mg + Zeaxanthin 2 mg
For your eyes and your focus — and it's the one place our dose matches the trial exactly.
Your macula holds a dense pigment built from these two carotenoids. It filters blue light and protects the cells underneath. It thins as you age, and your body can't make it — every bit comes from what you eat. Supplementing rebuilds it, and you can measure that.
Does it work?
Randomized, placebo-controlled. Lutein 10 mg + zeaxanthin 2 mg — our exact dose — for a year in 115 healthy adults. Pigment rose at every point they measured. Glare recovery and contrast improved too.
46 studies, 3,189 adults. Below 5 mg, nothing happened. Our 12 mg sits right in the band that works.
And it's part of why the cognition data matters to me.
A year of supplementation improved attention and mental flexibility — and memory improved in the men specifically.
Same intervention in younger healthy adults improved processing speed. This isn't only for men already slipping.
Is it safe long term?
About as good as safety data gets: roughly 4,000 people took our exact doses every day for five years under the National Eye Institute, with formal monitoring. No safety signal. The investigators went on to recommend these two as the replacement for beta-carotene.
Straight with you on the cognition trials: each analyzed around 51 people, and a larger trial in a different group found no memory benefit. I think the male-memory finding is worth telling you about. I'm not going to pretend it's settled.
Vitamin D3 3,000 IU
Immune backup — and most men over 40 are running lower than they think.
Vitamin D receptors sit on nearly every immune cell you've got. Your level drops with age, with indoor work, and every winter. This is the ingredient with the biggest, cleanest pile of human evidence in the whole formula.
Does it work?
25 randomized trials, about 11,000 people. Protective against respiratory infection, with the benefit strongest in daily dosing and in the men who started lowest. Our daily 3,000 IU matches the pattern that worked.
Is it safe long term?
VITAL — 25,871 people, over five years, the biggest vitamin D trial ever run. Kidney stones and high calcium were tracked and came out no different from placebo. Five years of hard safety data in 25,000 people is exactly what I want behind something you take every day.
VITAL also tested whether D prevents cancer and heart disease. It didn't, and I don't claim it does. What it gives us is the safety record.
Magnesium bisglycinate 200 mg
Easier sleep — in the same form the trial used, not the cheap stuff.
Magnesium is what makes your cellular energy actually usable, and it's one of the most under-eaten minerals in the American diet. I use bisglycinate because it's the form the sleep trial used and it's far gentler on your gut than the oxide most brands pour in.
Does it work?
Randomized, placebo-controlled, 155 adults with poor sleep. Magnesium bisglycinate — our exact form. Insomnia scores dropped 3.9 points versus 2.3 on placebo.
Is it safe long term?
Magnesium runs over 600 enzyme reactions and is the active partner in ATP. Mechanistic — real biochemistry, but that's not the same as a trial proving supplements give you energy, so I won't sell it that way.
The sleep effect is real but modest — the authors say so themselves. It's a nutrient, not a sedative.
Vitamin K2 as MK-7, 180 mcg
Sends calcium into your bones and away from your arteries — at the exact three-year dose.
K2 switches on two proteins: one binds calcium into bone, the other keeps it out of your artery walls. Without enough K2, both stay off. Most K2 products carry 100 or 120 mcg. We carry 180, because that's the number in the trials.
Does it work?
Double-blind, 244 people, 180 mcg daily. Arterial stiffness measurably improved.
Same group. Less age-related bone loss at the spine and hip.
Is it safe long term?
Two things I'll tell you plainly. The K2 trials were done in women, and the authors said extending it to men "needs further investigation" — I'm quoting them, not hiding it. And if you're on a blood thinner like warfarin, talk to your doctor before starting: K2 genuinely interacts with it.
Zinc 30 mg
Immune function, and a required input for making testosterone.
Zinc runs over 300 enzymes, including the ones behind testosterone production. It's also one of the minerals most reliably drained by age and by alcohol.
Does it work?
Randomized, placebo-controlled. 45 mg daily for a year cut infections and lowered inflammatory markers in older adults.
Is it safe long term?
Zinc is required to make testosterone, and starving a man of zinc lowers his. That's a supply argument, and it's true. What no trial shows is that adding zinc raises testosterone in a man who already has enough — so I don't say it does.
5-MTHF folate 400 mcg DFE + methylcobalamin B12 50 mcg
The already-active forms, so your body skips the conversion step.
The cheap forms in most multivitamins — folic acid and cyanocobalamin — have to be converted before you can use them. I use the forms that show up ready to go.
Does it work?
5-MTHF raised blood folate better than folic acid — and it did it in both the people with the MTHFR gene variant and the ones without. You don't need to carry a variant for the active form to be the smarter pick.
Head-to-head: 5-MTHF is at least as good as folic acid and leaves no unmetabolized folic acid floating around.
Is it safe long term?
This shows better absorption, not better health outcomes — nobody's run that trial. And 50 mcg of B12 prevents a shortfall; it won't fix a real deficiency. If you think you're deficient, get tested.
The antioxidant core: Vitamin C 200 mg · Vitamin E 30 mg · Selenium 100 mcg
Three doses I didn't guess. I took them from a 13,000-person trial that ran seven and a half years.
Antioxidants are where this industry goes off the rails — either useless pinches or megadoses way past anything ever tested. I did the boring thing: found the biggest, longest antioxidant trial in ordinary adults, and used its doses.
| Nutrient | The trial | Altrek |
|---|---|---|
| Vitamin E | 30 mg | 30 mg — exact |
| Selenium | 100 mcg | 100 mcg — exact |
| Vitamin C | 120 mg | 200 mg |
| Zinc | 20 mg | 30 mg |
Is it safe long term?
13,017 adults, followed a median of 7.5 years, on this exact antioxidant combination. It's the best long-term safety dataset behind any part of the formula, and it's why these numbers are what they are.
Because 100 mcg is the dose with seven-plus years of trial data behind it, and because your diet already gives you 100–150 mcg before you swallow anything. Doubling it adds risk and no proven benefit.
Selenium's real job in a man runs through selenoproteins — enzymes essential to sperm formation and normal testicular function. That's why it's here.
You'll see it sold as a testosterone ingredient. No trial shows selenium raises testosterone in men. I'd rather tell you that than run the same play everyone else runs.
On whether it works: this trial's overall result was null, with a benefit in men that faded once they stopped. I used it to set safe, sensible, well-tested doses — not as proof this makes you live longer. Nothing has ever shown that.
What's not in it, and why
What I leave out is as much a decision as what goes in. The full case is here — the short version:
No testosterone "booster" herbs. The loud ones don't work in men, and the couple that show data (like ashwagandha) carry a liver signal that needs a doctor watching your labs. A daily foundation can't carry that, so they're out — but it's exactly the kind of thing worth doing under a doctor's eye, once you know your numbers.
No turmeric. The trials are decent — but at 500 to 2,000 mg. A pinch that fits in a multivitamin has never done a thing in a human.
No beta-carotene, so no vitamin A on the panel at all. Deliberate.
No proprietary blends. A blend hides how little of each thing you're getting. Every dose in Altrek is on the label.
No stimulants. Caffeine gives you a feeling. It doesn't do the job this is here to do.
No iron. Men without a diagnosed deficiency don't need it, and extra iron isn't harmless.
What I don't claim
- None of these trials studied the finished Altrek formula. They studied the individual nutrients.
- No supplement has been shown to make you live longer. Not mine, not anyone's.
- This doesn't treat, prevent, or cure any disease.
- Some men will notice nothing — that's fair, and it's why the guarantee runs 90 days.
If you're on a prescription — especially a blood thinner, thyroid medication, or certain antibiotics — talk to your own doctor before starting this or anything else.
Every reference, in one place
- AREDS2 Research Group. Lutein + zeaxanthin and omega-3 fatty acids for age-related macular degeneration. JAMA. 2013;309(19):2005–15. PMID 23644932
- de Baaij JHF, et al. Magnesium in man. Physiol Rev. 2015;95(1):1–46. PMID 25540137
- Hammond BR Jr, et al. Lutein and zeaxanthin on photostress recovery, glare, and contrast. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2014;55(12):8583–9. PMID 25468896
- Hammond BR Jr, et al. Lutein/zeaxanthin and cognitive function in older adults. Front Aging Neurosci. 2017;9:254. PMID 28824416
- Hercberg S, et al. The SU.VI.MAX Study. Arch Intern Med. 2004;164(21):2335–42. PMID 15557412
- Knapen MHJ, et al. Menaquinone-7 and bone loss in postmenopausal women. Osteoporos Int. 2013;24(9):2499–507. PMID 23525894
- Knapen MHJ, et al. Menaquinone-7 and arterial stiffness. Thromb Haemost. 2015;113(5):1135–44. PMID 25694037
- Manson JE, et al. Vitamin D and prevention of cancer and CVD (VITAL). N Engl J Med. 2019;380(1):33–44. PMID 30415629
- Martineau AR, et al. Vitamin D to prevent acute respiratory infections. BMJ. 2017;356:i6583. PMID 28202713
- Pietrzik K, et al. Folic acid vs. L-5-methyltetrahydrofolate. Clin Pharmacokinet. 2010;49(8):535–48. PMID 20608755
- Prasad AS, et al. Zinc supplementation and infections in the elderly. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007;85(3):837–44. PMID 17344507
- Prinz-Langenohl R, et al. 5-methyltetrahydrofolate vs. folic acid on plasma folate. Br J Pharmacol. 2009;158(8):2014–21. PMID 19917061
- Renzi-Hammond LM, et al. Lutein and zeaxanthin and cognition in younger adults. Nutrients. 2017;9(11):1246. PMID 29135938
- Wilson LM, et al. Lutein/zeaxanthin and macular pigment optical density. Adv Nutr. 2021;12(6):2244–2254. PMID 34157098
Last reviewed August 2026. Find an error on this page? Email me and I'll fix it and note the correction.