Supplements are an area of healthy living that many people tend to get wrong. Due to the way that supplements are marketed, we often get the wrong idea about them and believe that they can do a lot more than they should. So if you’re looking to start taking supplements or just want to learn more about them, here are a couple of considerations to keep in mind.
What Exactly Do Supplements Do?
Supplements are all about supplementing your diet, hence their name. For example, if you don’t eat many foods containing vitamin C, then you might want to consider taking some vitamin C tablets to help supplement your diet. While it’s always best to get your nutrients from real food sources, there are cases where you might prefer to get them as a supplement. For instance, if you’re unable to eat citrus fruits or don’t like them, then you can try a vitamin C supplement.
However, this is where things start to get dangerous.
Since you can get the good nutrients you need from supplements, does that technically mean that you don’t need to eat at all? In theory; yes. If there was a supplement for everything that the body needed, then we could technically only eat those supplements and we could technically survive. However, the science isn’t quite there yet and there are many reasons why we still need food.
For example, eating vegetables gives you many different nutrients such as vitamins, fibre, anti-inflammatories, and even antioxidants. Not to mention that food also gives us calories which are important for energy. Food also helps to satiate us and that’s something a supplement pill can’t achieve. Our stomach would constantly growl and we’d feel frustrated if we didn’t eat something, hence why food is still important.
So the bottom line is this; supplements help to supplement our diet. It’s honestly just that simple. We need to take supplements now and then because our body lacks certain nutrients. This can be due to dietary choices which can be changed, but it also might be due to certain processes in our body that aren’t working correctly.
If you do have some kind of vitamin or nutrient deficiency, then it’s something that your physician needs to help with. If you’ve looked at the symptoms of having a particular deficiency then you’ll have a much better chance of fixing the problem by speaking to a healthcare professional than just taking some supplements.
What Can Supplements Actually Do For Me Then?
Quite a lot, actually!
As we mentioned already, supplements are made to supplement your diet with lots of different vitamins and nutrients. Some of these nutrients can offer very strong effects when taken regularly. For instance, there are supplements to reduce stress and anxiety such as Valerian root and CBD, but there are also supplements that can help us boost our immune system.
This is because nutrients affect us in many different ways. For example, vitamin C is necessary for growth, repair functions, and even boosts our immune system. By taking more vitamin C, you might become more resistant to illnesses, you might notice your skin and nails healing more quickly, and it might even speed up how quickly your wounds heal.
Of course, you’re not going to suddenly become a mutant that heals immediately after being cut, but it can speed up these processes and will lead to a healthier body overall. With that said, there is a limit to how many nutrients we should be taking in a single day. For instance, if you take way too much vitamin C then it could actually cause nausea, diarrhea, and many other nasty conditions.
Too much vitamin C is just one example of how things can go really bad if you rely too much on supplements. We’d always suggest that you eat more healthy food instead of trying to live an unhealthy diet that is supplemented with pills. A balanced diet is important to maintain a healthy body and weight, so don’t overestimate the effect of supplements and rely too much on them.
Tips For Buying Supplements
Perhaps one of the most difficult things about taking supplements is knowing where to buy them. You could just go to your local drug store, but you might find better deals online. In some cases, there are supplements that you can only get overseas, and there are some which you’re better off avoiding completely!
The supplements industry is a $124.8 billion market that has many big names in it. Many of these companies are obviously out for your money and will do everything to market their products to look better than their competitors. Unfortunately, this creates a rat race of sorts where these companies do everything they can to one-up other manufacturers in order to get your attention.
This means they might release supplements that are cheaper but have lower doses of certain nutrients, and they might use false marketing in order to get your attention. For example, there are many supplements that offer dozens of different effects, but in reality, you need to take seriously high dosages to ever see an effect because they barely contain any good nutrients.
This is also the case for lesser-known supplements such as tongkat ali. There are many trustworthy places to get supplements for these kinds of products, but there are also many fakes floating around on the internet. We generally suggest that you only go for products that have trustworthy brand names attached to them. In addition, you should also only buy from the brand if possible, or get them from a reputable store.
Buying supplements can be tricky because there are loads of companies out there that want to steal your money. As such, you should always look at reviews before you buy a supplement and take a closer look at the store you’re buying from. This will help you decide if it’s worth investing in a particular supplement, and it’ll also help you decide who the most trustworthy sellers are.
*collaborative post