Dietary supplements, also known as food supplements or nutritional supplements, are typically powders, liquids, capsules, or tablets containing one or more nutrients, vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids, or amino acids that might be missing or consumed in insufficient quantity in a person’s diet. The word, “supplement” itself suggests that the product should be added to or used to augment a regular diet.
Supplements can be thought of as a sort of insurance policy to protect against cases when you might not be getting enough of a specific nutrient from your diet. Supplements are not likely to be necessary if you eat a variety of fresh foods including many fruits and vegetables. It is also important to keep in mind that dietary supplements are not well regulated and are likely to range in quality and safety. Supplements are also marketed for a variety of uses from just about everything from enhancing cognition to increasing physical and sexual performance, to supporting normal function. So, it is important to remember that supplements can help or harm. Additionally, there is limited research showing that we actually benefit from supplementation. Deciding to take supplements is a personal decision and you should assess the risk to benefit ratio, as best you can. The market for supplements will likely continue to thrive in perpetuity. There will always be people who will make big claims about what a product can do and as the idiom from Alexander Pope says, “hope springs eternal in the human breast…”, meaning that it is human nature to be hopeful or future positive outcomes. INFOGRAPHIC This graphic should be interpreted carefully. Graphically, it’s very cool but resist the temptation to view the supplements at the top as “good” and the ones at the bottom as “bad”. Rather, this speaks to the popularity of supplements - and it is very hard to derive value from popularity - and the level of evidence for a particular supplement. I’m hopeful that field of supplementation will continue to move in a science-driven direction and that one day, we’ll have more confidence about what various supplements can actually do for / to us. In the meantime, check out this fun, dynamic infographic. I like you,Dan