The idea that if you broke down everything that goes into performance - sleep, nutrition, aerodynamics, recovery - and improved each area by just 1%, the accumulation would be extraordinary.

They famously brought their own pillows on the road to bike races across the world. Tested which bus mattress gave riders the best sleep. Obsessed over things most teams wouldn't even think to measure.

And it worked.

I think about that framework a lot when it comes to brain performance. Because that's exactly what I'm trying to help you do — help solopreneurs and small business owners manage their brain the way an athlete manages their body. And that means optimizing for small gains that mainstream science claims to be not statistically significant.

Which brings me to this week's question: is optimising your micronutrient intake a marginal gain worth making?

In the last issue of OptiMindInsights, we looked at a narrative review pushing the bold claim that our daily intake of vitamins and minerals can affect your cognitive function and wellbeing.

That goes against what I was taught in my Master's in Sports Science just a few years back.

The consensus there – and I think in much of academia in general – was that only severe deficiencies actually matter, and severe deficiencies are rare in the modern developed world.

Supplements just make expensive pee.

So the question is: are there marginal gains to be had by optimising micronutrient intake?

To get closer to an answer, I'm diving into two of the studies from last week's review. Let's go.

The first study is the CARDIA study by Qin et al. (2017).

Scientists followed 3,136 participants over 25 years - from age 18–30 all the way to around 50. 

That's a pretty rare and fantastic accomplishment in science.

They estimated participants' B vitamin intake at three separate time points across those 25 years, covering both food and supplements. 

Scientists then looked at whether the intake correlated with cognitive function, measured through three standardised tests: verbal memory (RAVLT), psychomotor speed (DSST), and executive function (the Stroop test).

Results showed that participants with the highest niacin (B3) intake scored the equivalent of 6 years younger on the psychomotor speed test compared to those with the lowest intake. 

Higher folate (B9) intake was equivalent to performing 4 years younger on the same test. 

Higher intakes of B6 and B12 were also both significantly associated with better psychomotor speed.

Interesting results, but there are some limitations here.

Most importantly, vitamin-intake was estimated retrospectively through self-reported eating and supplement habits. And cognitive ability was only measured at the 20-year follow-up, so we can't rule out that the differences were there all along and simply correlated with diet.

Howver the second study does handle some of those limitations and therefore strenghtens the notion that ther es in fact a correlation between micronutrient intake and cognitive abilities.

In this study by Durga et al. (2007), 818 participants with suboptimal folate (B9) levels and raised homocysteine were split into two groups. One received 800 µg of folate daily for 3 years. The other got a placebo.

Folate levels increased by 576% and Homocysteine (an amino acid that builds up when B-vitamin levels are insufficient, and which is associated with brain atrophy and cognitive decline), fell by 26%.

More importantly: after 3 years, the group receiving B9 performed significantly better on memory, information processing speed, and sensorimotor speed.

All cognitive domains that typically decline with age.

Taken together, these two studies don't prove that loading up on B vitamins will make you sharper tomorrow.

But they do suggest that running low - even subclinically - may have a real negative effect on your cognitive performance. And that optimizing these levels may in fact be something like marginal gains for Team Sky.

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If you want to get more out of your days as a solopreneur or a small business owner, I have something to offer 👇

Nemanja was struggling to maintain the level of focus required for his day-to-day job as a Tax Advisor, while also pursuing his goal of becoming a professional martial artist and growing his X account.

With that many things to do, his energy levels fluctuated, and he wasn’t able to give his side projects the attention and consistency he wanted.

We assessed his current routines, and made a few simple tweaks in regards to:

-Sleep
-Diet
-Mental energy management

He now has more stable energy and focus, and is therefore better able to give his martial arts training the attention it needs.

👉 If you recognize Nemanja’s story in yourself, check out one of my coaching offers and see if there is something worth for you.