You opened the drawer under your bathroom sink. Inside: a B-complex from GNC. Magnesium glycinate you read about on Reddit. Ashwagandha from Amazon. One A Day Women's 50+. The biotin you bought when your hair started coming out in the brush.

You'd been spending around $95 a month. You'd been doing this for nine months. By every reasonable measure — you were trying.

But the fatigue still hit at 3 p.m. The fog still rolled in mid-meeting. And no one could tell you why.

Here's the part nobody tells you: the RDA dose on every label in that drawer was set using data from healthy adults in their twenties. After 40, your stomach acid drops up to 40%, your hormonal environment shifts, and the way your body absorbs and uses nutrients changes completely.

You weren't failing to get better. The supplements were failing you.