The Truth About Dietary Supplements
Dietary supplements can help us be healthier, build strong muscle tissue, keep our bones and joints healthy, and help support good health in general.
Always ask your doctor before taking a supplement. If, for example, you don’t need any extra iron in your diet, you should not take a supplement that contains iron. Too much iron can cause serious health problems. Vitamin A is stored in the body and can accumulate to dangerous levels. Several other vitamins and minerals can accumulate in the body too, so never take supplements without consulting your doctor. Even a simple multi-vitamin tab comes in so many different forms that you should be careful about what you choose.
It’s another truth that the dietary supplement industry is a $22 billion industry. Do we really need $22 billion dollars worth of supplements to stay healthy? Are we spending money on pills and powders that may be doing nothing but making our wallets thinner and, in some cases, our waistlines bigger? The truth lies somewhere in between eating a balanced meal and that 22 billion dollars. Who/what are you? Are you a body builder, a marathon runner, a professional wrestler, an obsessive compulsive exercise fiend, or a crane operator? Or are you just the person who lives next door to the person who lives next door to you? You take care of the kids, cut the grass, pull a few weeds, wash the car and have cookouts in the back yard.
It’s sometimes hard to rely on just the food we eat to provide us with all the nutrition our bodies need. People with certain conditions may require supplements. Gluten allergies for example, would prevent someone from eating healthy whole grain wheat products. Someone who has stomach trouble may not be able to tolerate eating acidic foods such as tomatoes or oranges. As a whole, a balanced diet is all most people need. Another truth however, is that a significant part of the population doesn’t eat a balanced diet on a regular basis. Busy lifestyles keep a lot of people at the fast food drive through windows, or in the frozen food aisle purchasing high fat, high sodium, and high carbohydrate meals.
For more information about nutrition and supplements from the Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/supplements/NU00198
