Dietary Supplements: How Important Are They For Health?

Having a balanced diet with fruits, vegetables, dairy products, lean meats, and whole foods ensures we are getting all the nutrients the body needs to stay healthy and perform better. But increasingly busy schedules, growing workloads and the world of fast food around us restrain us from cooking and eating healthy. It's hard, after all, to be able to cook healthy meals for ourselves when it takes so much of our time and money.

That's where dietary supplements come in — seemingly being the magical solution. Dietary supplements are often used to compensate for bad eating habits. The question is do they actually do their job? Research shows that while some supplements do bring obvious health benefits, the effects of others are questionable or negligible.

Dietary supplements come in to get that added nutritional boost required to function properly. Today, there is an almost endless variety of health supplements available on the market under the categories of antioxidants, multivitamins, multiminerals, anti-aging, and weight loss supplements.

It’s advisable to always talk to your health care provider before popping any over-the-counter supplement, as they may have side effects in some cases. For example, if you are already on medication due to certain health conditions, the supplements might trigger undesirable side effects by interacting with these drugs. Also, the effects of many supplements have not been tested on children, pregnant women and some other groups of consumers.

A study conducted on 38,000 women aged 55 and older for a period of 20 years found that taking supplements did not really reduce the risk of any chronic disease or the risk of death from any causes. Rather, some commonly used vitamins and minerals, especially iron, might be associated with an increased risk of death. This doesn’t mean that iron is bad for health. People with medical conditions like anemia need iron to stay healthy. However, for healthy people, taking an extra dose of iron as a supplement may cause more harm than good.

Similarly, researchers found that taking 400 international units of vitamin E daily could lead to increased health risks and a daily dose of vitamin B-6 in excess of 100 milligrams may eventually cause nerve damage. Regular supplementation with Vitamin A may be associated with an increased risk of osteoporosis.

So, before you decide to pop some pills yourself, you might want to consider a few things. What exactly should you know about dietary supplements and what effect they actually have on your body?

Who Should Take Supplements?

• Adults above 50 years should eat foods fortified with vitamin B12, such as cereals, or take a supplement of the same
• Adults above the age of 65 years should take 800 IU (international units) of vitamin D daily to reduce the risk of bone fractures.
• Women of child bearing age should take 400 micrograms of folic acid daily either from fortified foods or supplements, in order to prevent birth defects
• Pregnant women should take a prenatal vitamin that has iron or a separate iron supplement.

See Also: Complete And Incomplete Protein Explained

Dietary supplements may also be required if:

• One doesn’t eat well or eats limited variety of foods
• A women experiences heavy bleeding during her menstrual periods
• There has been a surgery and one is not able to digest and absorb nutrients properly.
• There is a medical condition like food allergy, food intolerance etc.

It’s important to talk to your doctor about the possible side effects of any supplement and its interaction with your existing medicines, before opting for it.

Dietary Supplements: Expectations Versus Reality

Dietary supplements are regulated as foods and not as drugs, so they do not claim to cure, treat or prevent any disease. These dietary supplements are also not evaluated for the quality or their effect on body. So if a supplement is found to be unsafe, it is just banned from further distribution.

Although the manufacturers are responsible for accurately mentioning the nutrient list and their amounts present in each serving size, there is no authorized agency that ensures that labels match the contents of the bottle. As a result, there may be a risk of getting less, or more of what is mentioned and there may be a case that all the nutrients are not listed properly on labels. Though there are a few independent organizations which conduct quality tests of the supplements and offer their seals of approval, this does not guarantee that the product is totally safe. It just assures that the product contains the listed nutrients in the right amount.

For example, earlier research suggested that intake of Vitamin E by men might lower the risk of prostate cancer but a recent study conducted on around 29000 men found that taking vitamin E supplements actually raised and not reduced the risk of this disease.

On the other hand, some studies have proven that nutrient supplements like calcium, iron and vitamins B, C and D can enhance health in many ways. For example, calcium is good for supporting bone health, vitamin D - for helping the body absorb calcium, vitamin B12 — to keep nerve and blood cells healthy and vitamins C and E as antioxidants.

Picking A Supplement

While picking an over the counter vitamin or mineral supplement, check the following:

• Labels: Product labels usually tell the ingredients and their quantity in each serving size like a capsule, a packet or a teaspoonful etc. It’s better to read the labels carefully before putting the bottle in your cart.
• Expiry and Manufacturing Dates: The dietary supplements may lose their effectiveness over time especially in humid and hot weather conditions. If the supplement has no expiry date, it’s better not to buy it and even if the companies claim that the supplements are herbal and will not get expired, discard them after their expiry dates.
• Balance of all: Prefer opting for a multivitamin or multi-mineral supplements which has all the vitamins and minerals adding up to 100 percent of the daily value than the one which has one vitamin in excessive dose and other nutrients in low doses (unless and until prescribed by a doctor).
• Foods consumed: Nowadays, vitamins and minerals are being added to a lot of food products like breakfast cereals, health drinks, milk etc. If you are adding up your diet with these supplements, there may be a case that you will be getting more than what is required. Taking something in excess can do more harm than good. For example, too much of iron in diet may cause nausea and may damage liver and other organs.

See Also: Too Many Dietary Supplements May Jeopardize Your Health

Remember that dietary supplements cannot replace well balanced and healthy diet. If you feel that you don’t have a healthy diet, it’s better to shift focus on eating right rather than opting for a multivitamin. Healthy diet works better than any supplements in reducing your risk of chronic diseases and keeping you healthy and active.