[box]Nutritional supplement benefits have never been more important than they are today. Highly processed diets and increasing sedentary lifestyles have given rise to the rate of disease and lack of energy that plagues so many. Even those of us that eat healthy, stay active and choose fresh, organic produce over a fast food burger are not exempt.[/box]
Why Nutritional Supplements are Vital Today
People who eat whole foods, prepared fresh and avoid excess sugar and salt are certainly better off than the vast majority of people these days. However even these health conscious individuals need to supplement their diet with certain key nutrients. The soil that our foods grow in is simply lower in nutrients than it was a century ago. That spinach salad or head of broccoli doesn’t contain the necessary amount of nutrients that our body requires to perform as it should.
Couple this lack of dietary nutrients with the increasingly polluted air, toxic food additives, water supplies contaminated with heavy metals and chemicals, increasing radiation exposure and pharmaceutical medications that deplete the body of nutrients, and we have a global population of nutrient deficient, unhealthy people.
What Is a Nutritional Supplement?
Nutritional supplements or dietary supplements contain vitamins and minerals that our body needs to function. This can range from children’s chewable Vitamin C tablets to well formulated total health supplements.
Problems with Nutritional Supplements
The problem with nutritional supplements is that the majority of them are ineffective or even harmful. So many manufacturers are only concerned with the bottom line, money. This leads to the use of cheap proprietary blends that use the improper forms of these Vitamins and Minerals, often in such low doses that it wouldn’t matter even if they did use the correct form.
Inferior supplements have given dietary supplements a rather bad name, with many people believing that nutritional supplements as a whole are unnecessary and ineffective.
One paper published in the Annals of Internal Medicine fueled the attack on Vitamin supplements and nutritional supplements as a whole. Promptly picked up by media outlets and broadcast to the world. This “study” has since been debunked and proven to be one of the most flawed studies ever released. [1] However many people still believe that nutritional supplements do next to nothing for our health. It certainly doesn’t help when the most notable nutritional supplements are well-marketed garbage, offering little to no benefit and giving proper supplements a bad name.
Benefits of Nutritional Supplements
If you can wade through the sea of cleverly marketed, ineffective dietary supplements to find the diamonds in the rough, you can significantly improve your health and well-being.
Certain nutrients are so critical for the vast majority of the population to supplement daily. Vitamin D3 is a great example of a supplement that almost everyone in the world can benefit from. Some argue that we get all the Vitamin D we need from the sun, this couldn’t be further from the truth though. For almost everyone in the northern hemisphere it is near impossible to achieve even minimum requirements of this extremely important nutrient. Thankfully Vitamin D3 is readily available in supplement form and it costs pennies a day to supplement!
Iodine plays an integral role in the health and function of our thyroid. The thyroid is critical for our body’s hormonal balance, when it is not functioning properly a vast array of issues surface, including weight gain and the inability to shed those excess pounds. [2] Unless you are one of the few people who eats plenty of fresh, wild seafood and sea vegetables, you are not getting enough of this mineral. In fact over 50% of people are Iodine deficient, and this number is quite conservative. [3]
Glutathione is another great example of a vital antioxidant that most people are deficient in, yet it is easily enhanced through proper supplementation. Responsible for the detoxification and chelation of heavy metals from the body, glutathione levels are used as an indicator for a persons overall health and toxicity level. By raising glutathione levels you are decreasing toxicity in the body and improving the health and function of every cell, bodily system and organ. It is the single most important antioxidant in the body, required for the activation of many other antioxidants like Vitamin C and E.
Supplementing glutathione levels does require a bit of understanding though. While recent studies have shown that reduced glutathione supplements can enhance glutathione levels, the benefits of a given dose pale in comparison to the more bioavailable forms. Because the digestive process compromises the glutathione molecule before it can be absorbed, you are only left with a small fraction of in-tact GSH. Meaning about 90% of the supplement goes entirely to waste.
Looking for the bioavailable forms of glutathione allows you to supplement it far more effectively. Giving you optimal benefits in a given dose of glutathione. Acetyl Glutathione is the best absorbed form of GSH, protecting the GSH molecule from damage during digestion. Liposomal glutathione is another bioavailable form of GSH, however it comes at the cost of reduced shelf-life and potential manufacturing complications.
Nutritional Supplement Benefits Take Away
Taking a popular multivitamin brand or supplement using cheap proprietary blends will offer you little to no benefit. Do your homework and find a nutritional supplement that offers high quality ingredients in sufficient doses. By choosing a top quality dietary supplement you can significantly improve your health, well-being and energy.
Preventative care is the single best defense against disease and illness. Stop treating the symptoms and treat the cause. Feed your body what it needs to function as nature intended and you will fend off disease while maintaining a youthful vigor well into your later years.
It is not just about living longer, it’s about living better. Take your health into your own hands and live the life you deserve.
Working closely with a medical professional is very beneficial when looking for a nutritional supplement program. Tests can determine which nutrients you are deficient in and which supplements can best help you specifically.
Good read! And I agree!